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Malthus and Ricardo history of economic thought, Study notes of Economics

historical analysis of Malthus and Ricardo

Typology: Study notes

2017/2018

Uploaded on 10/16/2018

geoff007
geoff007 🇨🇦

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Historical Setting - England

  • (^) Increase in poverty and controversy over what to do about it.
  • (^) (industrial revolution…growing urbanization) unemployment and poverty were visible problems.
  • (^) Poor laws…Speenhamland law 1795 (minimum income)
  • (^) (linked income to the price of bread and allowances made to make up the difference).
  • (^) Heated debate. Whose problem is it? Is it the rich’s problem to save the poor?

Corn Laws

  • (^) Laws that placed tariffs on imported grains and effectively placed a minimum price on grain imported from abroad.
  • (^) Landlords favored theses tariffs …..why?
  • (^) Political power was under challenge by the rising class of merchants, and Industrial capitalists.
  • (^) Census of 1801….rising population…pressure on food supply.
  • (^) Gregory King 1696, hearth tax…accurate 5.5 million. Might double in 600 years.
  • (^) England needed to import food but (Napoleonic Wars) kept imports low, thus domestic prices were very high. Wars end and potential influx of imported grain would lower the price…landlords demanded that tariffs rise.
  • (^) Business interests demanded that the tariffs be reoved all together.

Inro of Essay

  • (^) THE following Essay owes its origin to a conversation with a friend, on the subject of Mr Godwin's essay on 'Avarice and Profusion' in his Enquirer. The discussion started the general question of the future improvement of society.
  • (^) I think I may fairly make two postulata. First, That food is necessary to the existence of man. Secondly, That the passion between the sexes is necessary and will remain nearly in its present state. But Mr Godwin has conjectured that the passion between the sexes may in time be extinguished

Exponential Growth

  • (^) The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. Kenneth E. Boulding
  • Exponential Growth is an immensely powerful concept;
  • The legend goes that the tradition of serving Paal Paysam to visiting pilgrims started after a game of chess between the local king and the lord Krishna himself. One day a traveling sage was challenged by the king. To motivate his opponent the king offered any reward that the sage could name. The sage modestly asked just for a few grains of rice in the following manner: the king was to put a single grain of rice on the first chess square and double it on every consequent one.
  • (^) Having lost the game and being a man of his word the king ordered a bag of rice to be brought to the chess board. Then he started placing rice grains according to the arrangement: 1 grain on the first square, 2 on the second, 4 on the third, 8 on the fourth and so on:
  • (^) Following the exponential growth of the rice payment the king quickly realized that he was unable to fulfill his promise because on the twentieth square the king would have had to put 1,000, grains of rice. On the fortieth square the king would have had to put 1,000,000,000 grains of rice. And, finally on the sixty fourth square the king would have had to put more than 18,000,000,000,000,000,000 grains of rice which is equal to about 210 billion tons and is allegedly sufficient to cover the whole territory of India with a meter thick layer of rice. At ten grains of rice per square inch, the above amount requires rice fields covering twice the surface area of the Earth, oceans included.
  • (^) Consider - In the world of technology, the doubling of processor speed is occurring approximately every 20 months

Preventative Checks

  • (^) These checks to population are those that reduce the birth rate also known as moral restaints. People who cold not afford children shoud either postpone marriage or never marry.
  • (^) The preventative check that multha’s disapproved of was called “vice”
  • (^) This included things such as prostitution, birth control,