An Essay on the Principle of Population

Malthus’s argument, published anonymously in 1798, that population grows geometrically while the means of subsistence grow arithmetically — so that growth is checked by want rather than dissolved by improvement. He wrote it against Godwin and Condorcet’s expectation of indefinite human progress, and rewrote it repeatedly over the next three decades as the objections came in.

Why it’s on the list: It is assigned in Intellectual Foundations of Economics next to Sowell’s A Conflict of Visions, Mill’s Utilitarianism, the Communist Manifesto, Lenin’s State and Revolution and Hayek’s Pretence of Knowledge — a course that reads the discipline’s arguments in the originals, with Malthus supplying the pessimistic limit case the rest are answering.

Where I saw it: Assigned in Intellectual Foundations of Economics on the University of Austin’s Fall 2025 reading list — “65 Texts Our Students Are Reading”, 65 assigned texts across 12 courses, shared by @uaustinorg on November 13 2025 and saved to Kyle’s Apple Note “Books To Read”. The full curriculum is transcribed on UATX Fall Reading List.

Connections

• UATX Fall Reading List — the curriculum this was assigned in.
• The University of Austin — the institution whose course list this is.
• Economics — the course subject.
• Degrowth — the modern descendant of the argument.
• Progress — what Malthus was writing against.
• Ideological Family Tree