THE MALTHUS FRAUD

Dees rebuts the famous population theory of Thomas Malthus in this nonfiction book.

Since his influential 1798 work Essay on the Principle of Population, Thomas Malthus has been synonymous with the concept of overpopulation. Malthus’ theory—that population grows exponentially while resources grow linearly, leading to inevitable shortages of those resources—has remained an influential concept in the fields of history and economics, used to contextualize everything from the collapse of the Roman Empire to the long-term viability of welfare programs like Social Security. In this short work, the author argues that Malthus’ theories are constructed on faulty logic: not only are they insufficient for explaining historical trends, Dees writes, but they are potentially dangerous if used to predict how trends might change in the future. The author sets out to answer the question, “[W]hy has such a patently absurd, easily refutable, plagiarized thesis become the standard, all but unique analytical tool in demographic historiography, with wide application in social policy today as well?” By looking at the original context in which Malthus was working and thinking, as well as evidence from across multiple eras, Dees reveals the underlying prejudices and misconceptions that Malthusian theory propagates. The author writes with directness and no shortage of attitude; the reader gets a healthy sense of Dees’ distaste for his subject and can’t help but partake in it. “Although Malthus may have been a master theologian-propagandist-apologist-plagiarist for the ruling elite,” deadpans the author, “he understood little about the workings of the system he was defending. His dogma claims that surplus population…is caused by the poor having too many babies. This is false.” This is an academic work rather than one for the general reader, but even those who don’t consider themselves Malthusian scholars will likely find much of Dees’ evidence to be revelatory, especially when it comes to the notion of overpopulation. Those worried about the coming demographic apocalypse can rest easier.

A slim but persuasive consideration of the popularity and wrongheadedness of Malthusian population theory.