Difference Between Malthusian and Neo-Malthusian

Malthusian and Neo-Malthusian

Malthusianism is a political thought put forward by Thomas Robert Malthus who stated that the idea of growth is exponential while that of the food supply is linear. He started two important checks which limit the population growth— preventive checks which include abstinence and delay of marriage until the individuals become financially stable and also restricting legal marriage and parenting rights for people deemed “deficient” (economically, physically) by the state, and positive checks such as war, diseases, starvation and so on. In a way, he either preferred a complete dictatorship over individual rights or supported the state fallacies which he termed as “positive”. He was against contraceptives and this is where he differs from the Neo-Malthusians. However, besides, contraceptives a Neo-Malthusian state often resorts to forced sterilisation, weighing of productive and unproductive death whereby during a national emergency, the state saves the ones it considers “productive” or efficient and lets the inefficient ones perish— Indian government’s disownment of the inter-state migrant labourers (a large chunk of the working-class population) who are left to die while doing its possible bit to bring the Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) from upper-middle-class backgrounds, back to the country, safe and sound.

Share on:

Ours is a youth-led virtual learning platform with dedicated social scientists and students. We aim at providing virtual guidance to the ones taking their first steps into the world of Social Science, either through formal education or because of their never-ending quest for learning. We believe in sharing with our readers the knowledge that we have gained, through simple transcription of social theories and their real-life application. We also believe in the power of knowledge in making the world a better place to thrive and survive.