Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 2.djvu/33

 THE REVERSAL OF MALTHUS 19

law but by tradition, from all other avenues of profit. When the door was opened woman became a competitor in all the fields of lighter activity and, the result being lower average wages, many of the consumers thus superseded were forced to join the ranks of producers. In this manner the volume of pro- ductive labor has been vastly swelled, both in numbers and in the capacity of each individual, since Malthus formulated his theory. The best estimates make the population of the globe hardly greater by one-half than it was at that time. All things consid- ered it is well within the general view to say that the capacity of the earth to produce the commodities of life has simulta- neously increased tenfold. If iron, meat-products, cereals and textile materials be taken as the standard of determination, the gain is unquestionably much greater.

All economic and political theories based on the hypothesis that universal overproduction of necessaries is impossible must therefore of necessity fail. As soon as free institutions, general intelligence, science and invention, began to stimulate causative energies, it was a certain thing that the time would come when the world's possible production would exceed the world's possi- ble demand. That time seems to have arrived.

On this theory alone can the fact be believed that like con- ditions prevail throughout the whole civilized world from Australia to the Levant. Previous conditions, tariff changes and currency complications have no doubt contributed to make the culminating effects more severely felt here than in other coun- tries, but there can be small doubt that the disease is universal, though some of its symptoms have before been produced by local causes. These are now contributory rather than funda- mental. It is not strange that farm lands and farm yields, as well as all manufactured articles are, " unprecedentedly low" in the United States, "despite the exhaustion of the public domain " and " increase of population." We simply happen to live at a time when new conditions have reached their climac- teric. Their consequences may be modified by governmental action ; but they cannot be permanently avoided nor long averted