Malthus on Long Swings: The General Case; Reply

Malthus evidently had a theory of long swings in mind as shown by his ratios and the thesis that strong and constant forces must necessarily hold the power of population over subsistence in check. Despite this, Waterman (1987) concluded that Malthus' theory of "oscillations" can be represented by a "zig-zag path of real wages." Waterman does not reach this conclusion using mathematical analysis but by breaking into 6 separate passages a single paragraph from Malthus' An Essay on the Principle of Population. An analysis of Malthus' general position shows that, in his theory of long swings, real wages do not follow a zig-zag path. This is evident because neither the accumulation of capital nor the growth of population behaves as Waterman claims. The path of wages generally will depend on the conditions prevailing at a particular time and place. In his reply, Waterman maintains there is no such thing as a general position, especially for a seminal thinker like Malthus.