ECON 19 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: English Poor Laws, Corn Laws, Physiocracy
Document Summary
Size of population is always determined by the available means of subsistence. Growth rate of population always outruns the growth rate of production. Claim: if population growth is larger than growth means of subsistence, checks become active. Positive checks: food shortages, famines, epidemics, and wars. The time it was published was the end of an era. Industrial revolution provided a new type of economy: innovations, rising productivity, development of non-agrarian, industrial production, and reallocation of resources. Irish famine: seemed like evidence for malthusian theory. However, this led to half-hearted reactions, because they thought of it as something natural, inevitable. Poor laws increased population size, which decreased wages, although food prices were rising, leading to more poverty. According to malthus, poor laws should be abolished. His rent theory followed from the debate on corn. Laws, which were designed to regulate imports in times of shortages. The corn laws failed after 1790, because of. Population growth: necessity for increase in food production.
