Essay on Population & Wealth of Nations

The 8 main topics covered in Malthus's "Essay on Population" include:

• The population will not grow if there is not enough food to go around.

• Plants and animals only care about providing for their offspring, while man cares only about himself.

• The population will grow at a fast speed due to the basic needs of humans.

• As the population grows, the work force becomes larger as well, and therefore the boss or person in charge has less money to pay to the labourers. Since he has less money to give out, they have to work much harder to earn the same amount of money as before.

• When people die in war, the population then adjusts and repopulates.

• A poor man can not go higher in society without putting a stress on that higher class.

• The rich gain favor for themselves by making the wages higher in a year with little profit, but when the market gets a high profit year... they make excuses to take the majority of the money.

• Agriculture has a limit due to land space being taken up, while population has no limit. Therefore, as the population keeps growing and doubling... there will not be enough food to feed everyone.

The 9 main topics covered in Smith's "Wealth of Nations" include:

• Rotate different crops during each season so more is produced instead of just growing one crop all year round. This is called crop rotation.

• More is produced when the work is done in one work place because more effort is put into the work consistently.

• Machine and tools have helped improved productivity also.

• A free market economy is the best thing for society.

• Meritocracy is a more beneficial way to run a society because it means that leadership is based on talent instead of social standings or wealth.

• A "system of perfect liberty" was used in his work to describe what we call today, capitalism. Capitalism is the idea of a market economy where supply and demand is used. Supply and demand is having the price of the items equal the amount wanted by the consumers. Production and distribution was maintained by private individuals or corporations.

• The amount of supply made yearly is based on two things. First it is based on the skill of the labourers. Secondly, the number of labourers who are employed good workers must be in balance with those who are not employed.

• There is a limit to division of labour. The limit is based on the extent of the market. This means that if the market grows to a certain limit, the division of labour will grow to be in proportion with it.

• If one wants to not be wasteful in a time of peace, then when war breaks out... they become in debt. The only money they have for war is the same as they had when they were in "peace". So then the government has to borrow money from other countries and soon that country becomes dependent on other countries.