"But let them work ever so efficiently, the
increasing population could not, as we have so often shown,
increase the produce proportionally: the surplus, after all were
fed, would bear a less and less proportion to the whole produce,
and to the population: and the increase of people going on in a
constant ratio, while the increase of produce went on in a
diminishing ratio, the surplus would in time be wholly absorbed;
taxation for the support of the poor would engross the whole
income of the country; the payers and the receivers would be
melted down into one mass. The check to population either by
death or prudence, could not then be staved off any longer, but
must come into operation suddenly and at once; everything which
places mankind above a nest of ants or a colony of beavers,
having perished in the interval."
There's good stuff in here too, of course. I kid John. That last line just makes me laugh.
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
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Malthusian comments like this didn't sound so easily rejected in the 1850s. Malthus and John Stuart Mill both worked for the East India Company, which gave them a certain perspective on this.
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