Malthus and the Social Limits to Growth

This paper seeks to demonstrate a tradition of argument that starts with Malthus' writings on population and on the environmental limits to growth, and continues in today's neo-conservative writings on 'mobilized demand' and the social limits to growth. The basic Malthusian theorem shows a concern with effective or mobilized demand. In this form, the theorem can readily accommodate changes that so-called neo-conservatives were to introduce in centuries that followed. Today the debate on the perfectibility of man, and the end-point of progress continues; only the terms of reference have changed. A key modification is the switch of concerns from physical to social limits. This switch is exemplified in Fred Hirsch's book, "Social Limits to Growth", which introduces the useful concept of 'positional goods' to help account for the unsatisfiability of modern wants. The paper concludes with a quote from Keynes, which clearly establishes the line of development from Malthus to the neo-conservatives; and with a question, asked by one of Keynes's critics, that can be addressed to the entire tradition Malthus founded.