Toward a Theory of the Malthusian Trap. Part 1

Abstract

Economic historians nowadays argue that economic growth in the world was extremely slow and unsustainable until the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteenth century. This article traces how the efforts of many economists and historians have gradually developed the concept of the “Malthusian trap” to explain the centuries-long relative stagnation of agrarian society. In the case of traditional economies, cliometric studies generally confirm Thomas Malthus’s ideas about the compensation of the positive impact of technological progress on per capita income by population growth. Modern scholars supplement them by analyzing the social structure of the society in the Malthusian trap, as well as its inherent institutions of redistribution, and the periodic flourishings and declines of proto-industry and trade that took place in those times. The article shows the logical interrelation of these elements within the Malthusian dynastic cycle. The concept of Malthusian trap is compared with the Marxist vision of the historical process. It is shown that positive insights of the Marxist approach can be implanted in the modern theory.