Geometric Population Increase: A Note on Priority of Usage

Abstract

Perhaps the most notorious choice of words ever made by an economist was the pair of mathematical terms used by Malthus to describe the maximum possible rates of increase in population and subsistence: “geometric” to describe population growth, and “arithmetic” to describe the growth of subsistence. If Malthus could have foreseen the linguistic and logical difficulties entailed by the geometric-arithmetic distinction, he might have looked for different adjectives. But what a loss to the “bravura” style of the Essay on Population so admired by Keynes! Consider the rhetorical impact of: “Population tends to increase at an exponential rate higher than the rate at which the food supply increases.” Is this the language of an economic classic?