Thomas Malthus

The Rev. Thomas Robert Malthus (February, 1766 – December 23, 1834), who is usually known as Thomas Malthus, although he preferred to be known as "Robert Malthus," was an English demographer and political economist best known for his pessimistic but highly influential views. Although it is popularly assumed that it was these pessimistic views that gave economics the nickname Dismal Science, the phrase was actually coined by the historian Thomas Carlyle in reference to an anti-slavery essay written by John Stuart Mill.

See also

• Cornucopian - the opposite of the Malthusian school of thought
• Malthusian Catastrophe
• Malthusianism
• Social Darwinism - a related idea
• Giovanni Botero - a sixteenth century thinker whose work foreshadows Malthus' ideas on population catastrophe