that the population would double every 25 years. His second
proposition was that the means of subsistence (i.e., the food
supply) cannot possibly increase faster than in arithmetic
progression (increasing by a given number of units every year).
The result would be population growth eventually outstripping
food production, and thus abject poverty and suffering for the
majority of people in every society.
Malthus’s population theory had tremendous intellectual
influence at the time and became an integral part of the
Classical theory of income distribution. However, it is no longer
taken as a good description of current or past trends.
David Ricardo (1772–1823)
David Ricardo was born in London to parents who had
emigrated from the Netherlands. Ricardo’s father was very
successful in money markets, and Ricardo himself was very
wealthy before he was 30 by earning money on the stock
exchange. He had little formal education, but after reading