Progress and Poverty

The accepted doctrine about workers’ wages is buttressed by the Malthusian theory. The theory claims that the rate at which the population grows exceeds that of food production. As a result, “[t]hese two doctrines, fitting in with each other, frame the answer which the current political economy gives to the great problem we are endeavoring to solve” (91). The source of Thomas Malthus’s theory was the rapid population growth in the North American colonies, where he noticed geometric (exponential) population growth as compared to the arithmetic (linear) increase of food supply even under the best conditions. Based on these observations, Malthus suggested population control, for instance, by “moral restraint,” since food availability was limited (94). Malthus’s assumption about the geometric and arithmetic rates is a fallacy.

However, despite being erroneous, the Malthusian theory left a significant impact on the concept of wages. This doctrine suggests that wages decrease because an increase in the number of workers translates into a more specific division of capital. The theory also claims that “poverty appears as increase in population necessitates the more minute division of subsistence” (97).