Definitions in Political Economy

Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834) was an English cleric, scholar and influential economist in the fields of political economy and demography. In his 1798 book An Essay on the Principle of Population he oberved that an increase in a nation's food production improved the well-being of the populace, but the improvement was temporary because it led to population growth which in turn restored the original per capita production level. He saw population growth as inevitable whenever conditions improved, thereby precluding real progress towards a utopian society. He criticized the Poor Laws for leading to inflation rather than improving the well-being of the poor, and supported the Corn Laws which placed taxes on grain imports. His views became influential and controversial across economic, political, social and scientific thought, and he remains a much-debated writer. In 1827 he published Definitions of Political Economy which in its first chapter put forth 'Rules for the Definition and Application of Terms in Political Economy', and later presents 60 numbered paragraphs putting forth the terms and their definitions that he proposed should be used in discussing political economy following those rules. This collection of terms and definitions is remarkable for two reasons: first, Malthus was the first economist to explicitly organize, define, and publish his terms as a coherent glossary of defined terms, and second, his definitions were for the most part well-formed definitional statements. Elsewhere in the book he criticized several contemporary economists including Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo and John Ramsay McCulloch for sloppiness in choosing, attaching meaning to, and using their technical terms. McCulloch printed a scathing review of the book on the front page of The Scotsman of Edinburgh, of which he was editor, which was for the most part a 'personal derogation' of Malthus.