1.Take Notes on Malthus's social concern the struggle between workers, landlords, and capitalists?
Malthus's first writings were in the unrest position of the workers against the landlords, proprietors, and capitalists. The economic system was allowing the wealthy people to receive the most of the revenue, and the labor was in the uncomfortable conditions. Malthus developed his law of population which defended the rich people. According to his law of population, the wealthy groups could get the power in the economy, and that was a natural process in the economy. He was aware of the social welfare issues. He defended the wealthy people and criticized the other radical authors writing in the favor of the labor such as Godwin and Condorcet.
2.Take notes on Condorcet and Godwin What did they say about inequality? Why did Malthus attack them?
Godwin and Condorcet criticized Malthus and his law of population. According to them, the economic system was creating an unfair condition for the labor and in the favor of the wealthy people. The economic system was creating an inequality between the rich people and the labor. Condercet was criticizing the economic system which created inequality, and he mentioned that this system was not the result of the natural process in the economic system. The wealthy people were abusing the labor by using their power in the economy.
Godwin developed a further explanation for the unfair conditions in the economy. According to him, the institutional structure was building the classes in the economy, and the wealthy people could hold the power in the economy by using the institutional structure. He expressed that if the government intervened the economy and enabled the poor people to receive the resources in the economy, a relatively more equal conditions could be created in the economy.
Malthus attacked these authors by claiming that developing equal terms in the economy was impossible because some elite groups would get the power in the economy, and that was a natural process in the economy. There were natural obstacles in front of developing equality in the economy. According to Malthus, even a fair system described by Godwin and Concorde was built, the system would degenerate and, the inequality would occur again. Therefore, the fair system was unstable and unsustainable in his opinion.
3. Is human suffering preventable? What is the difference in the reproductivity between the wealthy and poor?
The human being had the sexual desire, and that causes the generation of relatively more population in the long term. Because the natural resources are limited and the humankind could not produce relatively more than the natural limits, some people suffers from the limited food, and other natural resources. The poor people could not develop a moral character to control reproduce, and they lost in the economy. The rich people could control their sexual desires, and they could implement family control, and then they could have the power in the economy in the long term.
4. Why did Malthus rejects all the schemes of redistribution of wealth? Is class inequality a necessity?
According to Malthus, the regulations in the favor of the poor would end up the inefficient use of the natural resources because when the poor people received relatively more income, they would reproduce relatively more. The poor people could not develop moral values to control their reproduction. Therefore, the rich people who could produce moral values became elite people, and they always had the power in the economy.
The poor people always wanted to increase their reproduction, and because of that, the disequilibrium in the society became inevitable and necessity. When the poor people faced the relatively harsher times in the economy, they stopped themselves, and their numbers decreased.
The Malthusian law still works. The new technologies were expected to increase the resources by replacing the nature by the capital; however, the world has limited resources. Therefore, nonetheless, the humankind finds a way to use the other resources in the universe other than the world resources, the Malthusian law of population might be falsified. It seems impossible in the short run that the humankind can develop a life in the other planets. Consequently, the Malthusian law of population still works.
Reference
Malthus, Thomas. "An Essay On The Principle Of Population". Electronic Scholarly Publishing. 1-126, 2016. Web. 28 June 2016.
