Malthus and Population Growth

Very interesting take on the "Malthusian mistake" in Krugman's blog earlier in the week (I'm finally getting to some of the "marked as unread" pieces I wanted to look at and think about more carefully). And here's a slightly earlier related post.

And here’s the sense in which Malthus was right: he had a fundamentally valid model of the pre-Industrial Revolution economy, which was one in which technological progress translated into more people, not higher living standards. This homeostasis only broke down when very rapid technological change finally outstripped population pressure for an extended period.

Of course, Malthus’s predictive failure wasn’t accidental. Technological takeoff was the product of a newly inquisitive, empirically-minded, scientific culture — the kind of culture that could produce people like Malthus.

So what does that say about the size of the human population as we move into a world where climate change takes an ever growing toll on agriculture? Nothing good, I'm sure.

I suppose I should link to a source on Malthus' thesis, if you're unaware of it