| |
|
- A n E s s a y o n t h e
P r i n c i p l e o f P o p u l a t i o n
C h a p t e r 2
- _____________________________________________
- The different ratio in which population and
food increase - The necessary effects of these different ratios of
increase - Oscillation produced by them in the condition of the lower
classes of society - Reasons why this oscillation has not been so much
observed as might be expected - Three propositions on which the general
argument of the Essay depends - The different states in which mankind have
been known to exist proposed to be examined with reference to these three
propositions.
I SAID that population, when unchecked, increased in a geometrical ratio,
and subsistence for man in an arithmetical ratio.
Let us examine whether this position be just.
I think it will be allowed, that no state has hitherto existed (at least
that we have any account of) where the manners were so pure and simple, and the
means of subsistence so abundant, that no check whatever has existed to early
marriages, among the lower classes, from a fear of not providing well for their
families, or among the higher classes, from a fear of lowering their condition
in life. Consequently in no state that we have yet known has the power of
population been left to exert itself with perfect freedom.
Whether the law of marriage be instituted or not, the dictate of nature and
virtue seems to be an early attachment to one woman. Supposing a liberty of
changing in the case of an unfortunate choice, this liberty would not affect
population till it arose to a height greatly vicious; and we are now supposing
the existence of a society where vice is scarcely known.
In a state therefore of great equality and virtue, where pure and simple
manners prevailed, and where the means of subsistence were so abundant that no
part of the society could have any fears about providing amply for a family,
the power of population being left to exert itself unchecked, the increase of
the human species would evidently be much greater than any increase that has
been hitherto known.
In the United States of America, where the means of subsistence have been
more ample, the manners of the people more pure, and consequently the checks to
early marriages fewer, than in any of the modern states of Europe, the
population has been found to double itself in twenty-five years.
This ratio of increase, though short of the utmost power of population, yet
as the result of actual experience, we will take as our rule, and say, that
population, when unchecked, goes on doubling itself every twenty-five years or
increases in a geometrical ratio.
Let us now take any spot of earth, this Island for instance, and see in what
ratio the subsistence it affords can be supposed to increase. We will begin
with it under its present state of cultivation. If I allow that by the best
possible policy, by breaking up more land and by great encouragements to
agriculture, the produce of this Island may be doubled in the first twenty-five
years, I think it will be allowing as much as any person can well demand.
In the next twenty-five years, it is impossible to suppose that the produce
could be quadrupled. It would be contrary to all our knowledge of the qualities
of land. The very utmost that we can conceive, is, that the increase in the
second twenty-five years might equal the present produce. Let us then take this
for our rule, though certainly far beyond the truth, and allow that, by great
exertion, the whole produce of the Island might be increased every twenty-five
years, by a quantity of subsistence equal to what it at present produces. The
most enthusiastic speculator cannot suppose a greater increase than this. In a
few centuries it would make every acre of land in the Island like a garden.
Yet this ratio of increase is evidently arithmetical.
It may be fairly said, therefore, that the means of subsistence increase in
an arithmetical ratio. Let us now bring the effects of these two ratios
together.
The population of the Island is computed to be about seven millions, and we
will suppose the present produce equal to the support of such a number. In the
first twenty-five years the population would be fourteen millions, and the food
being also doubled, the means of subsistence would be equal to this increase.
In the next twenty-five years the population would be twenty-eight millions,
and the means of subsistence only equal to the support of twenty-one millions.
In the next period, the population would be fifty-six millions, and the means
of subsistence just sufficient for half that number. And at the conclusion of
the first century the population would be one hundred and twelve millions and
the means of subsistence only equal to the support of thirty-five millions,
which would leave a population of seventy-seven millions totally unprovided
for.
A great emigration necessarily implies unhappiness of some kind or other in
the country that is deserted. For few persons will leave their families,
connections, friends, and native land, to seek a settlement in untried foreign
climes, without some strong subsisting causes of uneasiness where they are, or
the hope of some great advantages in the place to which they are going.
But to make the argument more general and less interrupted by the partial
views of emigration, let us take the whole earth, instead of one spot, and
suppose that the restraints to population were universally removed. If the
subsistence for man that the earth affords was to be increased every
twenty-five years by a quantity equal to what the whole world at present
produces, this would allow the power of production in the earth to be
absolutely unlimited, and its ratio of increase much greater than we can
conceive that any possible exertions of mankind could make it.
Taking the population of the world at any number, a thousand millions, for
instance, the human species would increase in the ratio of - 1, 2, 4, 8,
16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512, etc. and subsistence as - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7,
8, 9, 10, etc. In two centuries and a quarter, the population would be to the
means of subsistence as 512 to 10: in three centuries as 4096 to 13, and in two
thousand years the difference would be almost incalculable, though the produce
in that time would have increased to an immense extent.
No limits whatever are placed to the productions of the earth; they may
increase for ever and be greater than any assignable quantity, yet still the
power of population being a power of a superior order, the increase of the
human species can only be kept commensurate to the increase of the means of
subsistence by the constant operation of the strong law of necessity acting as
a check upon the greater power. The effects of this check remain now to be
considered.
Among plants and animals the view of the subject is simple. They are all
impelled by a powerful instinct to the increase of their species, and this
instinct is interrupted by no reasoning or doubts about providing for their
offspring. Wherever therefore there is liberty, the power of increase is
exerted, and the superabundant effects are repressed afterwards by want of room
and nourishment, which is common to animals and plants, and among animals by
becoming the prey of others.
The effects of this check on man are more complicated. Impelled to the
increase of his species by an equally powerful instinct, reason interrupts his
career and asks him whether he may not bring beings into the world for whom he
cannot provide the means of subsistence. In a state of equality, this would be
the simple question. In the present state of society, other considerations
occur. Will he not lower his rank in life? Will he not subject himself to
greater difficulties than he at present feels? Will he not be obliged to labour
harder? and if he has a large family, will his utmost exertions enable him to
support them? May he not see his offspring in rags and misery, and clamouring
for bread that he cannot give them? And may he not be reduced to the grating
necessity of forfeiting his independence, and of being obliged to the sparing
hand of charity for support?
These considerations are calculated to prevent, and certainly do prevent, a
very great number in all civilized nations from pursuing the dictate of nature
in an early attachment to one woman. And this restraint almost necessarily,
though not absolutely so, produces vice. Yet in all societies, even those that
are most vicious, the tendency to a virtuous attachment is so strong that there
is a constant effort towards an increase of population. This constant effort as
constantly tends to subject the lower classes of the society to distress and to
prevent any great permanent amelioration of their condition. The way in which,
these effects are produced seems to be this.
We will suppose the means of subsistence in any country just equal to the
easy support of its inhabitants. The constant effort towards population, which
is found to act even in the most vicious societies, increases the number of
people before the means of subsistence are increased. The food therefore which
before supported seven millions must now be divided among seven millions and a
half or eight millions. The poor consequently must live much worse, and many of
them be reduced to severe distress. The number of labourers also being above
the proportion of the work in the market, the price of labour must tend toward
a decrease, while the price of provisions would at the same time tend to rise.
The labourer therefore must work harder to earn the same as he did before.
During this season of distress, the discouragements to marriage, and the
difficulty of rearing a family are so great that population is at a stand. In
the mean time the cheapness of labour, the plenty of labourers, and the
necessity of an increased industry amongst them, encourage cultivators to
employ more labour upon their land, to turn up fresh soil, and to manure and
improve more completely what is already in tillage, till ultimately the means
of subsistence become in the same proportion to the population as at the period
from which we set out. The situation of the labourer being then again tolerably
comfortable, the restraints to population are in some degree loosened, and the
same retrograde and progressive movements with respect to happiness are
repeated. This sort of oscillation will not be remarked by superficial
observers, and it may be difficult even for the most penetrating mind to
calculate its periods. Yet that in all old states some such vibration does
exist, though from various transverse causes, in a much less marked, and in a
much more irregular manner than I have described it, no reflecting man who
considers the subject deeply can well doubt. Many reasons occur why this
oscillation has been less obvious, and less decidedly confirmed by experience,
than might naturally be expected.
One principal reason is that the histories of mankind that we possess are
histories only of the higher classes. We have but few accounts that can be
depended upon of the manners and customs of that part of mankind where these
retrograde and progressive movements chiefly take place. A satisfactory history
of this kind, on one people, and of one period, would require the constant and
minute attention of an observing mind during a long life. Some of the objects
of inquiry would be, in what proportion to the number of adults was the number
of marriages, to what extent vicious customs prevailed in consequence of the
restraints upon matrimony, what was the comparative mortality among the
children of the most distressed part of the community and those who lived
rather more at their ease, what were the variations in the real price of
labour, and what were the observable differences in the state of the lower
classes of society with respect to ease and happiness, at different times
during a certain period.
Such a history would tend greatly to elucidate the manner in which the
constant check upon population acts and would probably prove the existence of
the retrograde and progressive movements that have been mentioned, though the
times of their vibrations must necessarily be rendered irregular from the
operation of many interrupting causes, such as the introduction or failure of
certain manufactures, a greater or less prevalent spirit of agricultural
enterprise, years of plenty, or years of scarcity, wars and pestilence, poor
laws, the invention of processes for shortening labour without the proportional
extension of the market for the commodity, and, particularly, the difference
between the nominal and real price of labour, a circumstance which has perhaps
more than any other contributed to conceal this oscillation from common view.
It very rarely happens that the nominal price of labour universally falls,
but we well know that it frequently remains the same, while the nominal price
of provisions has been gradually increasing. This is, in effect, a real fall in
the price of labour, and during this period the condition of the lower orders
of the community must gradually grow worse and worse. But the farmers and
capitalists are growing rich from the real cheapness of labour. Their increased
capitals enable them to employ a greater number of men. Work therefore may be
plentiful, and the price of labour would consequently rise. But the want of
freedom in the market of labour, which occurs more or less in all communities,
either from parish laws, or the more general cause of the facility of
combination among the rich, and its difficulty among the poor, operates to
prevent the price of labour from rising at the natural period, and keeps it
down some time longer; perhaps till a year of scarcity, when the clamour is too
loud and the necessity too apparent to be resisted.
The true cause of the advance in the price of labour is thus concealed, and
the rich affect to grant it as an act of compassion and favour to the poor, in
consideration of a year of scarcity, and, when plenty returns, indulge
themselves in the most unreasonable of all complaints, that the price does not
again fall, when a little rejection would shew them that it must have risen
long before but from an unjust conspiracy of their own.
But though the rich by unfair combinations contribute frequently to prolong
a season of distress among the poor, yet no possible form of society could
prevent the almost constant action of misery upon a great part of mankind, if
in a state of inequality, and upon all, if all were equal.
The theory on which the truth of this position depends appears to me so
extremely clear that I feel at a loss to conjecture what part of it can be
denied. That population cannot increase without the means of subsistence is a
proposition so evident that it needs no illustration.
That population does invariably increase where there are the means of
subsistence, the history of every people that have ever existed will abundantly
prove.
And that the superior power of population cannot be checked without
producing misery or vice, the ample portion of these too bitter ingredients in
the cup of human life and the continuance of the. physical causes that seem to
have produced them bear too convincing a testimony.
But, in order more fully to ascertain the validity of these three
propositions, let us examine the different states in which mankind have been
known to exist. Even a cursory review will, I think, be sufficient to convince
us that these propositions are incontrovertible truths.
|
|