International Studies Compendium Project

Extract

Comment on this article   Since at least the time of the Roman Empire, statesmen have been concerned about population and security. However, their definition of security was simple: more people meant more production and hence more wealth for the government to tax; more people also meant more soldiers could be recruited. Thus for the leaders of all the great empires of history, a key element of long-term security was protecting the population well enough to assure its reproduction and growth. In the conditions of pre-modern societies, where population growth rates were generally very slow, usually less than 0.5 percent per year and rarely if ever sustaining rates of 1 percent per year, more growth was always regarded as good for the empire and its security. Starting in the sixteenth century, a few voices were raised complaining that a surplus of people was overrunning the countryside, driving up prices for land and grain and contributing to excessive numbers of landless men and beggars. However, it was not until the work of T.R. Malthus (1826) in the early nineteenth century that a strong argument was made that more people would put an undesirable burden on societies, and weaken them. Malthus argued that in the long run, the tendency of the population to expand would outpace the production possibilities of agriculture, leaving too many idle hands and too many mouths to feed. ... log in or subscribe to read full text