Malthus: Ethics in Population Control

In his Essay on the Principle of Population, Malthus addressed the concern for the human population's growth and the toll that it would eventually take on the resources available to sustain it.  Claiming that population would experience "geometric growth," while resources (i.e. food supply) would only grow at "arithmetic growth." (Backhouse 134)  Malthus begins with providing two sources to handle population growth.  Through preventative checks lowering the birth rate (misery) and positive checks increasing the death rate (vice), Malthus proposed to format a type of population control.  In a further addition of the Essay, he added the last category of moral restraint to his other solutions for population growth, thereby covering for his evidence lacking in supporting facts. (134)  Failing to have an optimistic outlook on human nature, Malthus tried to give moral guidance through his controls on population. (135)

While Malthus did have a point about population growth becoming a problem, he failed to bring the factor of technology into his discussion. Technology allows for an exponential increase in resources, thereby allowing for a larger population growth than Malthus would have otherwise predicted.  Lacking this factor, the population situation would have indeed been concerning.  However, with the factor of technology, this concern need not have been as pressing.

Technology aside, there is a larger question that I see here, and that would be the ethics inherent in population control. When Malthus gives examples of misery through war and famine, and then vice through war, infanticide, prostitution, and contraception, he seems cold and cruel to the humanity present I would consider as present in this situation. (134)  Ethically could you really control the ability of one to have children or use their body as they see fit?  Are natural rights a factor in his argument at all?

Existence of Economic Thought Prior to Adam Smith

             Although Adam Smith is often regarded as the father of economics, there were many developments in economics before Adam Smith.  In fact, some argue that Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations does not include a single original idea and is merely a collection of economic thought that was already developed (Backhouse 130).  Although often ignored, the economic thought before Adam Smith was important and much of the thought is still relevant today.  In the ancient world, for example, Plato advanced the idea of efficiency and advocated specialization as a means to being efficient (18).  In business, and markets in general, there is always the concern with being efficient and the debate on whether or not workers should specialize still takes place.  In the middle ages, Ibn Kaldun put forth the idea of the process of economic development, describing how a nation transitions from peak points to trough points (38).  This is indicative of the business cycle where the economy is constantly going through high points and low points.  In seventeenth-century England, William Petty compiled a list of national accounts and was able to make estimates of the figures on a national level (69).  Compiling national accounts lists and estimates is, of course, still used today.  While these are only a few examples, there are many other areas of important economic theories developed before the time of Adam Smith.  Yet Adam Smith still receives that majority of the credit for the beginnings of economics.  Why these earlier writers are often ignored, I am not sure.  It could be because the ideas were developed here and there and not on a larger scale.  Adam Smith was able to pull all of these ideas together into a collection, and that could be a reason for his praise.  Adam Smith also wrote his Wealth of Nations at the same time as the Industrial Revolution was underway.  As the Industrial Revolution is regarded as the reason for large economic growth in various nations, Adam Smith’s writings seem to coincide with this progress and advancement.  It could also be due to the fact that, as an individualistic society motivated by profit, some of the early economists who wrote about the harmful effects of self-interest and the accumulation of too much wealth do not appear to accurately represent some current views of economics.  Although Adam Smith was concerned with having a moral society, he also advocated self-interest and explained how the two could be related.

Self-Interest?

I've been saving this link for our discussion on Adam Smith. It's an opinion piece from The Wall Street Journal. The author, Matt Ridley, often writes on things philosophical and economic. Here he's asking whether we benefit more from trading with others or from teamwork?

It's an interesting question. Both of them involve cooperation. One can make the case that teamwork involves a clearer application of the comparative advantage principle. But one can also demonstrate that the "us vs. them" view is bound to involve costs that wouldn't have to be incurred.

Read it over and try to relate it to our discussion about Smith, the invisible hand, and the impartial spectator. You can even discuss economic economic systems (Mandeville, etc.). The article has lots of possibilities and I'm keen to see which ones you see and how you see them connecting.

I ran across an interesting blog post on the website of the American Enterprise Institute. It provided an introduction to an organization called Peers.org and their attempt to create a "sharing economy."
Here's the link to their video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzdSKHA-FvI

The idea would seem to be a good one. We have an attempt to show that our "self-interest" benefits by cooperation.

I would maintain that is similar to the modern market place. You and I meet the market place to cooperate through mutual exchange and we both benefit.

My question for the class is "Does the Peers.org approach lend itself to unethical behavior through free-riders; or does it merely simplify the marketplace with a return to barter based on some level of comparative advantage instead of using money as medium of exchange?"

I hope this generates some discussion.
I also remind you that you are responsible for initiating posts as well as commenting on posts by me or your fellow students as part of the course expectations.

Self-Interest

Self-Interest

You may or may not be familiar with the on-line comic strip XKCD. If you’re not, here’s an example that appeared in mid-December.

While the situation is based on a familiar piece of fiction, it presents a good example of how ethics and economics meet. In the situation depicted, the solution to the challenge presented by the Wizard is easy enough, especially if one presumes self-interest as the only motive. However, one must ask “how many of us would solve the problem that way?” (We can also use this to discuss the ideas of barter and double coincidence of wants, but we don’t have to explore that right now.)

Introductory Post

This blog is about economics and ethics. It is not unique in this respect. There are others.

One might ask why produce a blog on this combination. For many, they do not represent a natural fit. After all, isn’t economics about self-interest? Isn’t that greed? How ethical can that be? But the fit is natural.

When we consider the roots of economics, the connection to ethics is quite clear. Early economic ideas were often put forth by philosophers such as Aristotle, St. Thomas Aquinas, and others. The founder of modern economics is usually identified as Adam Smith. He was a professor of moral philosophy. His Theory of Moral Sentiments predates the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by sixteen years. And he intended both of them to be part of a larger compendium – to be read together with ideas that built on one another.

Over time, economics has developed into a separate field. Its practitioners often state their work is positive rather than normative and integrating ethics can lead away from that “scientific” ideal. Perhaps that is true. But one thing is clear, our decisions and choices – the fundamental building blocks of economics are tinted by our values and viewpoints – our belief in what is right and wrong. We make choices based on values and viewpoints we pick up from others, or that we fail to learn from others. So this blog is one more attempt to better understand the questions we face, using both economic and ethical insights to examine the choices we face and make. It is an attempt to shed light on our “self-interest” and to consider what that really means.

This blog is made possible by generous grant to Randolph-Macon College by BB&T for the study of The Moral Foundations of Capitalism. We hope you find the posts interesting, entertaining and thought-provoking.