Malthus and Ricardo's Inductivist Critics

Economists' knowledge of Malthus has been shaped very largely by the extensive Ricardo-Malthus correspondence, now widely known through Mr. Sraffa's edition of Ricardo's writings. In his exchanges with Ricardo, Malthus appears as an insistent realist, countering Ricardo's strong cases with references to specific historical experience, and calling attention to what happens during the intervals ignored in Ricardo's long-run equilibrium analysis.Four substantial letters from Malthus to William Whewell have recently come to light in the Whewell Papers, at Trinity College, Cambridge.2 A reading of them suggests that the position Malthus adopted in debate with Ricardo was one dictated in part by the latter's severely abstract approach to economic enquiry. William Whewell, and the small Cambridge inductivist circle of which he was a member, occupied the opposite extreme to Ricardo in the methodological spectrum. In relation to them, Malthus appears almost as a defender of Ricardo's abstract reasoning. The letters are valuable chiefly for the fresh light which they thus shed on Malthus's methodological stance; though they also contain clear restatements of some of his known views

Epistemology · Linguistics · Reading (process) · Relation (database) · Economic Theory and Institutions · Economic Theory and Policy · Philosophy · Political Economy and Marxism

• Linguagem, contexto e história do pensamento econômico

  Open Access•Ryan Walter•História Econômica & História de…•2023

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• Pickering's Collected Malthus

  Peter Groenewegen•Journal of Political Economy•1988

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• The Other Correspondence of T. R. Malthus

  John Pullen•History of Political Economy•2016

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• The Canonical Classical Growth Model

  Open Access•Samuel Hollander•Journal of the History of…•1998

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• The Enthusiasm of David Ricardo

  Open Access•Ryan Walter•Modern Intellectual History•2016

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• Correspondence Between Malthus and his Parents

  John M Pullen, J Mark Pullen•History of Political Economy•1986

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• Malthus, Mathematics, and the Mythology of Coherence

  A M C Waterman•History of Political Economy•1998

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• The King-Davenant 'Law' in Classical Economics

  A M Endres•History of Political Economy•1987

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• Harriet Martineau's Empiricism

  Robert Rich, R Michael Rich•History of Political Economy•2024

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• Reappraisal of "Malthus the Economist," 1933-97

  A M C Waterman•History of Political Economy•1998

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• A Hard Battle to Fight

  H Maas•History of Political Economy•2008

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• Malthus and Ricardo on Economic Methodology

  Sergio Cremaschi, Marcelo Dascal•History of Political Economy•1996

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• The Last Sixty-Five Years of Malthus Scholarship

  John Pullen•History of Political Economy•1998

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