Principles of Political Economy

London, John Murray; J. Johnson, 1820; 1806. . First edition; 8vo; scattered light foxing, heavier to endpapers; contemporary calf, tooled border, spine gilt in 6 compartments, red morocco spine label, minor abrasions to covers, sprinkled red edges; an attractive volume.
The first edition of Principles of Political Economy with the first two-volume edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population.

Malthus' theory that prosperity and production lead not to utopia, but to population growth and thereby back to social imbalance, known as the 'Malthusian trap', was expounded in his Essay on the Principle of Population, one of his most notable and debated works. His Principles of Political Economy was written as a polemic against David Ricardo's On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation and Say's Law, arguing that demand did not grow simultaneously with supply, but that they should be analysed independent of each other, expounding ideas which became influential on Keynsian economics. Both these works were divisive, incurring backlash and support amongst notable economists.

'The central idea of the essay -- and the hub of Malthusian theory -- was a simple one. The population of a community, Malthus, suggested, increases geometrically, while food supplies increased only arithmetically. If the natural increase in population occurs, the food supply becomes insufficient and the size of the population is checked by 'misery' -- that is, the poorest sections of the community suffer disease and famine. The Essay was highly influential in the progress of thought in early nineteenth-century Europe' (PMM).