The Development of T.R. Malthus's Institutionlist Approach to the Cure of Proverty: From Punishment of the Poor to Investment in Their Human Capital

Hans. Jensen

Review of Social Economy, 1999, vol. 57, issue 4, 450-465

Abstract: William Godwin had a dual influence on Thomas Robert Malthus. First, Malthus wrote the premier (1798) edition of his Essay on the Principle of Population to refute Godwin's thesis that institutional reforms could halt the growth of population and thereby pave the way toward universal affluence. There were only two checks on population, said Malthus in 1798: vice and misery. Second, pursuant to his discovery of virtuous checks on population in Scandinavia, Malthus reread Godwin's principal works. He now accepted Godwin's dual proposition that population growth could be stopped, even reversed, by the virtuous check of moral restraint and that this check could be made operational through institutional realignment. In the second (1803) edition of his Essay, Malthus argued, therefore, that poverty could be replaced by prosperity through institutional changes in the form of the introduction of universal education and gradual abolition of the poor law.

Keywords: institutional reforms; Godwin; Malthus; misery; moral restraint; vice (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1999
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DOI: 10.1080/00346769900000016

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