Research Paper on:
Economic Theories of Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus

Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
the Principle of Population. At the core of Malthus economic philosophy is the contention that population is inclined to increase more rapidly than the supply of food that such  growth inevitably necessitates. "Whenever a relative gain occurs in food production over population growth, a higher rate of population increase is stimulated; on the other hand, if population grows  much faster than food production, the growth is kept in checked by famine, disease, and war" (Malthus PG). This particular economic stance was motivated by the real world issue  that reflected the sharp increase in food supplies as a direct result of both the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic era. "Population, when unchecked, increases in a geometrical ratio.  Subsistence only increases in an arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power compared to the second" (Malthus PG). Malthus fit into  the general history of economic thought by concluding that such drastic propensity for growth could only lead to extreme distress, a belief that went against prevailing optimistic beliefs of the  early nineteenth century. "The number of labourers also being above the proportion of work in the market, the price of labor must tend towards a decrease; while the price  of provisions would at the same time tend to rise" (Malthus PG). People of that time disagreed with Malthus - whose writing served to refute John Maynard Keynes economic  philosophies - by asserting that societal resourcefulness would ultimately prove plenty strong enough for prosperous economic progress. The concept of capitalism speaks well  to the opposing views of Malthus and Adam Smith, inasmuch as Smith supported the notion that capitalism was socially, politically and economically beneficial for the greater good, leaving little consideration