Governing the Population: Malthus’ Theory of Population ... Note-9... · Governing the...

Boğaziçi University | Department of Economics Econ 411 | History of Economic Thought

Governing the Population:

Malthus’ Theory of Population and Bentham’s

Panopticon


The historical conditions

Industrial revolution and accumulation of capital at the expense of consumer goods and the well being of the working classes:

(a) the demolishing of the traditional way of living;

(b) the mechanization of life (the Luddites, 1813);

(c) women and children as workforce;

(d) high price of grain, trade restrictions.

In England, in contrast to France, the bourgeois revolution dragged on and classical political economy became one of the terrains on which it was fought.


Two fault lines fracturing the society

a. The emergence of the proletariat as a collective agency

The end of eighteen century and early nineteen century. The early spread of the predecessors of modern unions in 1790s. The Combination Act of 1799 against the unionization of workers. It was justified in the name of preventing monopoly and maintaining competition in labor markets, but no mention was made of the combinations among employers and the monopolistic practices of capitalists.

The Speenhamland System and its discontents. The first version of a welfare state. Karl Polanyi writes on it in his now classic The Great Transformation (1944).

b. The struggle between landowners and the emerging industrial bourgeoisie

The Corn Laws from 1815 until 1846 when the Parliament voted for the total abolition of Laws. Why were industrial bourgeoisie against corn laws? (1) with lower imported grain prices lower wages would be possible, relieving the pressure on the profits of the industrialists (2) a market for industrial goods would be opened in Europe.


The two class struggles of Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)

Against the progressive and radical ideas of Condorcet (1743-1794) and William Godwin (1743-1834), Malthus wrote his An Essay on the Principle of Population (1798; 1803). His second book, Principles of Political Economy (1820) shifts the perspective towards a theory of value and economic depressions.

In this sense, Malthus’ writings can be divided into two periods. The first period is his writings on his well-known theory of populations, and the second period is his interpretation of Adam Smith’s theory of value, his concept of rent and his theory of gluts.


The two class struggles of Thomas Malthus (1766-1834)

Historical context The debates The opponents Books

1790-1805: The emergence of proletariat as collective agency

“What to do about the poverty of the emerging working classes?”

M. Condorcet, William Godwin

An Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, with Remarks…(1798; 1803)

1815- 1840s: The struggle between the landlords and the industrialists

“The Corn Laws” David Ricardo Principles of Political Economy Considered with a View of Their Practical Application (1820)


The Population Explosion First decennial census was taken in 1801.

Possible causes for the population explosion:

1. Industrial Revolution creating its own labor force by a demand pull.

2. Improvements in sanitation, nutrition, and housing leading to a decline in mortality rate.


Social Reformism (1)

The abject conditions of working class and the labor unrest of the late 18th century had spawned many intellectual champions of the working class.

Marquis de Condorcet (1743-1794)

1. Precariousness of the incomes of the working poor could be eliminated by a government fund for the welfare of the aged and of women and children who had lost their husbands and fathers. (Social Security)

2. Limiting the amount of credit available to powerful capitalists and by extending it to ordinary working people, thereby rendering the latter more independent of capitalists.


Social Reformism (2)

William Godwin (1756-1836) argued, contrary to prevailing opinion, that the defects of the working class was not due to the natural laziness and depravity of the working class, but rather attributable to to corrupt and unjust social institutions.

1. Capitalist institutions, particularly private property relations, were the causes of the evils and suffering within the system.

2. The government in a capitalist system would never redress these evils because it was controlled by the capitalist class.


Malthus’ Theory of Population

Growth Capacity Checks to Growth

Preventive: all limitations on births

Positive: all causes of deaths

Moral Restraint

Vice Vice Misery

Instincts of reproduction

Means of subsistence

1. Man’s natural capacity to reproduce (at a geometric rate) exceeds his capacity to increase the food supply (at an arithmetic rate).

2. Either the preventive or the positive check is always in operation.

3. The ultimate check to reproductive capacity lies in limitations on the food supply.


Moralism of Malthus’ Theory of Population

“A promiscuous intercourse to such a degree as to prevent the birth of children seems to lower, in the most marked manner, the dignity of human nature. It cannot be without its effect on men, and nothing can be more obvious than its tendency to degrade female character, and to destroy all its most amiable and distinguishing characteristics.” (Malthus [1803] 1960, 19)

“…carelessness and want of frugality [predominates among the poor.” (14)

“…even when they have an opportunity of saving they seldom exercise it, but all that is beyond their present necessities goes, generally speaking, to the ale-house.” (14)


Malthus’ critique of social reformism (1)

1. The poor have no cause to complain about their poverty, for it is but a necessary consequence of their having bred with excessive rapidity; the poor can improve their lot only by refraining from early marriage.

2. Redistributive policies on behalf of the poor are harmful, since they encourage them to multiply, thus aggravating their poverty in the future.

3. High grain prices merely confirm the fact that the number of people has outstripped the means of subsistence. Tariffs on imported corn and high corn prices are beneficial because they stimulate agriculture and thereby increase the amount of means of subsistence.



“It is evident truth that, whatever may be the rate of increase in the means of subsistence, the increase in population must be limited by it, at least after the food has once been divided into the smallest shares that will support life. All the children born, beyond what would be required to keep up the population to this level, must necessarily perish, unless room be made for them by the deaths of grown persons. [Cont.]



“To act consistently therefore, we should facilitate, instead of foolishly and vainly endeavouring to impede, the operation of nature in producing this mortality; and if we dread the too frequent visitation of the horrid form of famine, we should sedulously encourage the other forms of destruction, which we compel nature to use. Instead of recommending cleanliness to the poor, we should encourage contrary habits. In our towns we should make the streets narrower, crowd more people into the houses, and court the return of plague. In the country, we should build our villages near stagnant pools, and particularly encourage settlements in all marshy and unwholesome situations. But above all, we should reprobate specific remedies for ravaging diseases; and those benevolent, but much mistaken men, who have thought they were doing a service to mankind by projecting schemes for the total extirpation of particular disorders. If by these and similar means the annual mortality were increased… we might probably every one of us marry at the age of puberty, and yet few be absolutely starved.” (Malthus [1803] 1960, Vol. 2, 179-180)


Bentham’s Utilitarianism (1)

Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), social philosopher and reformer.

Calculus of pain and pleasure.

“By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness (all this in the present case comes to the same thing), or (what comes again to the same thing) to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party whose interest is considered.” (Bentham [1780]1969, 86)

People are essentially lazy.

“Aversion is the emotion—the only emotion—which labour, taken by itself, is qualified to produce… In so far as labour is taken in its proper sense, love of labour is a contradiction in terms.” (Bentham 1954, Vol. 3, 428)


Bentham’s Utilitarianism (2) He switched positions from that of defender of laissez faire to that of a reformer.

Two reasons:

1. Savings do not equal investment. Against Say’s Law. Justifying monetary interventions by the government: If the government increased the amount of money in circulation, “the the money introduced… becomes a source of increasing wealth” (124).

2. The idea that money has diminishing marginal utility. Justifying possible redistributionary schemes.

All of this was justified under a general utilitarian social philosophy.

Say’s Law: No one would produce, unless that person wanted to exchange his or her production for someone else’s production. Therefore, supply always creates demand of same magnitude and the economy will always eventually reach equilibrium. This view is, of course, in stark contradiction with Malthus’ theory of gluts.


Bentham’s Panopticon (1) The panopticon writings consist of series of Letters written in 1787 and two postscripts written in 1790 and 1791.

“A simple idea in architecture” never realized in this particular form.

“a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example”

The inspector with his invisible omnipresence, “an utterly dark spot” in the all-transparent, light-flooded universe of the panopticon.

Miran Bozovic. “Introduction: ‘An utterly dark spot.” In The Panopticon Writings. London: Verso, 1995.


Bentham’s Panopticon (2) 1. Spectacle of Punishment

The punishment itself is less intended for the punished, i.e., the guilty person, than it is for everyone else, i.e., the innocent. Weighing the value of reformation against that of setting an example.

2. Fiction in the Panopticon

In Panopticon, the inspector exposes himself to the eyes of the prisoners as little as possible: all of his power derives from his ‘invisibile omnipresence’. The inspector has to be omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. The role fiction in the Panopticon vs. the role of fiction (for deterrence) through Panopticon.


Bentham’s Panopticon (3)

3.Gaze and Voice in the Panopticon The inspector is also the book-keeper. Therefore, if, on the one hand, there were enough light in the lodge for the inspector manage the books, he could not effectively perform his invisible inspection; if, on the other hand, there were not enough light for him to be visible, then he would be unable to keep his books. Solution would be to make the lodge translucent, opaque so that only a shadow, a silhouette will be visible.

“Looking at me even when it does not see me.”


Bentham’s Panopticon (4)

4. An Utterly Dark Spot

Since it is impossible to keep each prisoner under surveillance “during every instant of time”, the next best alternative is that “at every instant, seeing reason to believe as much, and not being able to satisfy himself to the contrary, he should conceive himself to be so”.

The prisoner cannot see that he is not seen, though he can try to test it…


Panopticism, or the emergence of the disciplinary society (1)

“The Panopticon … must be understood as a generalizable model of functioning; a way of defining power relations in terms of the everyday life of men. [The Panopticon] is the diagram of a mechanism of power reduced to its ideal form; its functioning, abstracted from any obstacle, resistence or friction, must be represented as a pure architectural and optical system: it is in fact a figure of political technology that may and must be detached from any specific use. [Cont.]


Panopticism, or the emergence of the disciplinary society (2)

It is polyvalent in its applications; it serves to reform prisoners, but also to treat patients, to instruct schoolchildren, to confine the insane, to supervise workers, to put beggars and idlers to work. It is a type of location of bodies in space, of distribution of individuals in relation to one another, of hierarchical organization, of disposition of centres and channels of power, of definiton of the instruments of power, which can be implemented in hospitals, workshops, schools, prisons. Whenever one is dealing with a multiplicity of individuals on whom a task or a particular form of behaviour must be imposed, the panoptic schema may be used.” (Foucault 1979, 205)

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