The Cambridge Contribution to Economics

I am a Fellow of Jesus so I must start with the person Keynes called ‘the first of the Cambridge economists’, Thomas Robert Malthus, as you would say, but according to Keynes, as the name is an adaptation of Malt house, the correct pronunciation is Malthouse. You may see his portrait in the dining hall of Jesus College. Keynes called him ‘the first of the Cambridge economists’ because he was the first chap to think like Keynes (Keynes never did consider modesty a virtue). I have a great affection for Malthus, partly because he had a stock (or perhaps a flow) of one-liners which I enjoy. In the first edition of his famous essay on population you will find some really funny remarks about the nature of the passion between the sexes which he thought was as near to a constant as would be likely to be found amongst human beings. When he was arguing with his dad, who took a Godwin stance on the possibility of perfection of humanity, Malthus, as befits a member of the Church of England, was more gloomy. He said there are two great constants: one, the passion between the sexes; the other, the fact that, as population grew, since there was a limit to the quantity of land and also to its quality, food and other necessaries would not grow as fast and so we would always be near to the constraints of starvation and misery.