Essay On Overpopulation

Words: 783
Pages: 4

Is the earth really over populated?

While this question may generate a quick, firm and reassuring YES! Others have continued to argue that overpopulation is nothing but a myth. The currently persistent debate on whether overpopulation is real or it is a myth date back to the 1800s with German, Karl Marx and Englishman, Thomas Robert Malthus.

Thomas Robert Malthus was an English scholar, proficient in the field of Political Economy and Demography. He was the first economist to propose a systematic theory of population. In 1798 he published his famous book “Essay Of The Principle Of Population” in which he articulated his views regarding population. By 1803, he made a revised edition which modified some of his but his original these remained

He devised various strategies to keep population increase to the level at which it could be supported by the natural resources. These strategies he categorized as “preventative” and “positive” checks.
[Basis of argument]

Malthus chief control strategy was that of “Moral restraint”. This was a “preventative” check- a deliberate decision by man to postpone his pursuit for a wife and a family in his early years. The strategy advised that man would seek his companion at a later stage in his life when he is fully capable of supporting a family. Malthus anticipated that this would generate smaller families and probably fewer

He believed that families should not be restricted to the number of children born to them after their marriage. In essence, Malthus did not want to control procreation in married families as a mean of preventing population increase. There he would not be interrupting the natural gift of multiplying and creating family. However he combatted the size and number of families by urging man to postponed marriage that would allow for less time to make big families and also put man in a space where he is better able to support his