Beyond Malthusianism: Demography and Technology in John Stuart Mill's Stationary State

In his evaluation of the major social reform movements of his era, Mill chastised well-meaning reformers for their reluctance to elevate Malthusianism to a position of prominence in their efforts. He was convinced that the key to the material, mental, and moral improvement of the poor and the workers lay in a reduction of their physical numbers and in the behavioural modifications entailed by such a diminution, whereas most other reformers looked elsewhere for solutions. A favourite assumption about the proper means for effecting social reform was that economic growth served as an effective and almost automatic instrument for improving society. Then, as now, an unquestioned faith in the capacity of a progressive economy to stimulate gains in per capita income for the lower classes set the terms for the discussion.1 However, by suggesting that broader and more intensive economic development without a corresponding reduction in the rate of population increase would not generate material gains for those living in indigence, let alone the broader socio-cultural progress that was to have followed closely upon its heels, Mill casts aspersions upon the ‘false ideal’ of economic growth which informed many grand programmes for social progress.