Economic, Social and Demographic Thought in the Xixth Century
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Yves Charbit Economic, Social and Demographic Thought in the XIXth Century The Population Debate from Malthus to Marx 123 Prof. Yves Charbit Universite´ Paris Descartes UMR CEPED (Universite´ Paris Descartes-INED-IRD) 75006 Paris France ISBN 978-1-4020-9959-5 e-ISBN 978-1-4020-9960-1 DOI 10.1007/978-1-4020-9960-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2009920976 c Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specificall for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed on acid-free paper 987654321 springer.com Contents 1 The Population Controversy and Beyond .......................... 1 Theoretical Progress and Affiliation . ............................ 2 Demographic Theory and Economic Theory . ..................... 4 Demographic Doctrines and Ideology . ............................ 5 Interpreting Theories and Doctrines ................................ 6 2 Population, Economic Growth and Religion: Malthus as a Populationist .......................... 9 The Central Concepts . ........................................... 13 The First Model: Regulation by Mortality . ..................... 15 The First Model: Scandinavian Countries . ..................... 16 The Reform of the Poor Laws in England . ..................... 17 The Second Model: The Demo-Economics of Fertility and Nuptiality . 20 The Agricultural Employment Market and Demographic Growth . 20 TheLawofDiminishingReturns.............................. 21 The Third Model: Effective Demand . ............................ 23 Production and Population . ................................ 23 Short-Term Demographic Responses . ..................... 25 EffectiveDemand........................................... 25 EnglandinMalthus’sTime................................... 27 A Comprehensive Model for Maximising Demo-Economic Growth . 31 Social Doctrine . ........................................... 32 Industry and Agriculture . ................................ 33 Malthus the Populationist . ................................ 37 Moral Restraint, the Principle of Population and Demo-Economic Growth ................................................... 38 Religion and Economics in the Concepts of 1798 . .............. 42 ContradictionsandUnityinMalthus’sWritings...................... 46 vii viii Contents 3 From Malthusianism to Populationism: The French Liberal Economists (1840–1870) ......................................... 51 The Economists as a Sect . ....................................... 51 A Double Paradox . ........................................... 53 The 1856 Census: Demographic Crisis and Economic Prosperity . 54 The 1866 Census: The Decreasing Fertility and International Outlook 55 Poverty of the Working Class and the Dangers of the Revolution . 57 Industrialisation and Its Demographic Implications . .......... 58 Responses to the Problem of Poverty . ..................... 60 The Second Empire: Social Peace . ................................ 62 The Peasants: Small Holdings and Rural Exodus . .......... 64 TheUrbanWorkingClasses.................................. 69 Towards Populationism . ....................................... 75 The New Socialism . ....................................... 76 Demographic Conditions: Infant Mortality and Fertility . .......... 77 Military Problems and Pacifis . ............................ 79 EmigrationandColonies..................................... 80 FromAnti-colonialismtoColonialism ......................... 81 EmigrationandColonisation ................................. 81 Malthusianism and the Bourgeois Ideology . ..................... 83 Annex: The Causes of the Rural Exodus . ............................ 87 4 The Malthusian Trap: The Failure of Proudhon .................... 93 A Thinker Who Cannot Be Classifie . ............................ 93 TheTwoProgressions............................................ 95 TheEarlyCarnets:ToBeorNottoBeaMalthusian?............. 95 Population Growth . ....................................... 98 Does Production Really Increase in Geometrical Progression? . 100 Economics and Population . .......................................101 The Demand for Labour . ................................102 TheRighttoWork..........................................103 Emigration, Colonisation and Economic Power . .................105 Industrialisation and Free Trade . ............................105 Moral Philosophy and Social Criticism . ............................108 PhilosophyandPoverty......................................108 Progress and Providence . ................................109 The Proudhonian Model . .......................................111 Against Fertility Control . ................................111 Fertility and Work . .......................................112 Malthusian Recommendations ................................114 The Limitations of Proudhon’s Ideology . .....................115 TheMisuseofMetaphysics.......................................116 Contents ix 5 Capitalism and Population: Marx and Engels Against Malthus ......121 An Ambivalent Hostility . .......................................121 The Poverty of the Working Classes and the Poor Laws . ..............125 The Epistemological Break of 1845 and Population . ..............128 Applying the Method of Political Economy to Population . 128 From Engels to Marx: Analysing the Crises of Capitalism . 130 The Accumulation of Capital and Its Organic Composition . ..........134 Marx’s Primitive Accumulation Versus Malthus’s Effective Demand . 136 TheEffectiveDemand.......................................137 Primitive Accumulation in the History of Capitalism . ..........140 Capitalism’s Population Law: The Industrial Reserve Army . ..........141 CreationandDevelopmentoftheReserveArmy.................142 Conditions for the Working of the Population Law of Capitalism . 144 The Actual Working of the Population Law . .....................146 Increasing the Industrial Reserve Army .........................146 The International Dimension of Capitalism .....................149 Challenging the Theory on the Basis of Demographic Facts . 150 DemographyandtheEvolutionofCapitalism........................154 Annex: The Althusserian School and Population . .....................157 The Epistemological Status of Population . .....................158 Three Key Theoretical Points . ................................159 6 Beneath Demographic Issues ....................................163 WealthandPower...............................................164 Demographic Behaviour and Bourgeois Universalism . ..............165 TheStateandtheFamily .........................................166 Theorising Versus Historicising . ................................167 Bibliography .......................................................171 Index .............................................................183 Chapter 1 The Population Controversy and Beyond The two intellectual figure who dominated the whole of the nineteenth century, Malthus and Marx, were and still are systematically opposed. A “clash of prophets” claimed in 1970 the title of an American textbook, which usefully provided large excerpts of what Marx and Engels wrote against Malthus. According to current understanding, Malthus is hostile to an excess of population because it causes social sufferings, while Marx is favourable to demographic growth in so far as a large proletariat is a factor aggravating the contradictions of capitalism. This is unfortu- nately an oversimplificatio and a few scholars have long established that in his later works Malthus seriously retrenched from his earlier opinion: population, far from being redundant, might well be insufficien to ensure sustained economic growth. As for Marx, he proves extremely ambivalent towards Malthus, simultaneously de- nouncing the sycophant of the Tories while claiming him to be an economist far superior to Ricardo. To be more precise, Malthus and Marx can be reasonably be opposed only in so far as their demographic theories are concerned, and again only if one refers to the f rst edition (1798) of theEssay on the Principle of Population.As soon the analysis is broadened to the later editions of the Essay and to the economic writings of Malthus, it is clear that he constantly raised the same question: when considered as an economic variable, how does population f t into the analysis of economic growth? Marx also addressed the problem, assuredly less obsessively and both Marx and Malthus were concerned with growth and not equilibrium,amajor difference from the orthodoxy of the classical school. From the same starting analyt- ical standpoint, Marx established a very different diagnosis from that of Malthus and built a social doctrine no less divergent: there was no way out of increased poverty and class conflict were unavoidable. What was left to lesser thinkers to say about one of the major social issues raised by industrialisation? Whereas important scholars concentrated on the English scene, relatively little is known about nineteenth controversies over population debates in France. They are dealt with here and again sweeping generalisations prevail. The French liberal economists, who prolificall wrote on population at the