The Fallacy of Malthus 327 



several hundred millions of bushels every year to 

 Europe? Evidently it is not a difference in space. 

 The limits of the continent are the same as when 

 it was inhabited by the Indians. The difference 

 is in the institutions of the two civilizations, and 

 these reduce in the last analysis to a difference in 

 ideas. Instead of being divided into hundreds of 

 petty tribes, each making war upon the other, the 

 present population of the North American con- 

 tinent forms practically one great association, 

 practising mutual aid and the division of labour 

 upon an enormous scale. It is the same with all 

 the other cases considered by Malthus. Every- 

 where he neglects the effects of institutions and of 

 association as the chief factors in determining the 

 productivity and the amount of subsistence avail- 

 able for any given society. 



Malthus emphasizes repeatedly the fact that 

 population tends to increase in a geometric ratio, 

 but he fails entirely to note that association also • 

 increases productivity in the same geometric ratio, 

 so that until the world is populated up to its limit 

 (a condition which will probably never be reached, 

 on account of the declining birth-rate which 

 everywhere accompanies advancing civilization), 

 the productive power and the means of subsistence 

 of the human race will always keep ahead of the 

 population. This fact of association which Malt- 

 hus ignores, completely shatters his whole theory. 

 According to Malthus the means of subsistence 

 can only be increased in an arithmetic ratio while 



