I've been reading the expanded 1803 edition of Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population.

His explanation for the long-run stagnation in preindustrial living standards is well know to us as the Malthusian Trap, where any productivity gains result in population growth until the per capita effects disappear. But I was struck by an unfamiliar passage where he also explains how the condition of the labouring poor can stagnate even as the wealth of a nation increases, (a) without any population growth, (b) even in the short-run, and (c) in the industrial age.

Malthus lays out a scenario^[1] where manufacturing production increases whilst agricultural production remains constant. The manufacturing sector's demand for labour raises wages and employment. But the masses of labouring poor spend ~80% of their earnings on food,^[2] of which there is no more than before. And so their higher incomes mostly just bid up food prices, and their consumption ultimately remains unchanged. Meanwhile, the health of this class suffers as they're crowded into urban manufacturing centres.^[3] Hence, even as total (i.e. manufacturing & agricultural) output per person expands , the majority of the population sees stagnation in one dimension of their living standards (real incomes), and decline in another (health).

And as I read this, I was also struck by how much this situation resembles what Robert Allen has called Engels' Pause: the rise in output per worker coupled with stagnant wages between 1780-1840, the first phase of the British Industrial Revolution.^[4] And so it prompted me to look up what happened for agricultural output per person over the period.  Look:

Figure 1: English real agricultural output per person, five-year moving average (index 1800=100)

Source: Based on data underlying Figure 3.04 & Table 1.10 from Stephen Broadberry, Bruce M.S. Campbell, Alexander Klein, Mark Overton & Bas van Leeuwen (2015) British Economic Growth, 1270-1870

Not only stagnation, but stagnation alternating with decline. By 1840, English agricultural output per person had fallen by almost a quarter from its level in 1780. (Note I've taken a five-year moving average here, to smooth out year-to-year fluctuations. And see how the story of alternating stagnation and decline is shared by both arable and pastoral output).

Presumably net imports must have filled some of the short-fall. But with the Corn Laws in action, and salvation by American grain still in the future, I doubt that Britain's domestic supply of food per person did anything more than stagnate over the period.

So, does this suggest the Malthusian model retains explanatory power into the early stages of the Industrial Revolution? And did Malthus anticipate Engels' Pause?

1. ^{^}

   The following is my paraphrase. But here is Malthus in his own words (An Essay on the Principle of Population: The 1803 Edition, Book III, Chapter VII, p.332):

   Dr. Smith defines the wealth of a state to be, the annual produce of its land and labour. This definition evidently includes manufactured produce, as well as the produce of the land. Now, supposing a nation, for a course of years, to add what it saved from its yearly revenue to its manufacturing capital solely, and not to its capital employed upon land, it is evident that it might grow richer according to the above definition, without a power of supporting a greater number of labourers, and therefore, without any increase in the real funds for the maintenance of labour. There would, notwithstanding, be a demand for labour, from the power that each manufacturer would possess, or at least think he possessed, of extending his old stock in trade, or of setting up fresh works. This demand, would of course raise the price of labour; but if the yearly stock of provisions in the country were not increasing, this rise would soon turn out to be merely nominal, as the price of provisions must necessarily rise with it. The demand for manufacturing labourers might, indeed, entice many from agriculture, and thus tend to diminish the annual produce of the land; but we will suppose any effects of this kind to be compensated by improvements in the instruments, or mode, of agriculture, and the quantity of provisions therefore to remain the same. Improvements in manufacturing machinery would of course take place; and this circumstance, added to the greater number of hands employed in manufactures, would augment considerably the annual produce of the labour of the country. The wealth, therefore, of the country would be increasing annually, according to the definition, and might not be increasing very slowly.

   The question is, how far, wealth, increasing in this way, has a tendency to better the condition of the labouring poor. It is a self-evident proposition that any general advance in the price of labour, the stock of provisions remaining the same, can only be a nominal advance, as it must shortly be followed by a proportional rise in provisions. The increase in the price of labour which we have supposed, would have no permanent effect therefore in giving to the labouring poor a greater command over the necessaries of life. In this respect, they would be nearly in the same state as before. In some other respects, they would be in a worse state. A greater proportion of them would be employed in manufactures, and fewer consequently in agriculture. And this exchange of professions will be allowed, I think, by all to be very unfavourable, in respect of health, one essential ingredient of happiness, and also with regard to the greater uncertainty of manufacturing labour, arising from the capricious taste of man, the accidents of war, and other causes, which occasionally produce very severe distress among the lower classes of society.

   Note that no population growth is necessary here (as it is in the classic account of the Malthusian Trap). Malthus is not saying here that we should consider the response of population to living standards, but that we should distinguish between the impacts of economic growth in different sectors. An Industrial Revolution alone will not lift the living standards of the vast majority of the population; an Agricultural Revolution is also necessary.

2. ^{^}

   To illustrate an earlier point, Malthus lays out the budget of a typical "man with a family", earning ten shillings a week: "Before the scarcity [of 1800-1801; emphasis added], he had been in the habit of purchasing a bushel of flour a week with eight shillings perhaps, and consequently had two shillings out of his ten, to spare for other necessaries." (An Essay on the Principle of Population: The 1803 Edition, p.317) That food generally absorbed ~80% of expenditure for most people, even in normal times, seems a stylised fact of preindustrial life (see: Carlo Cipolla (1994) Before the Industrial Revolution: European Society and Economy, 1000-1700; Third Edition, Table 1.7, p.24; Fernand Braudel (1981) Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century, Volume I: The Structures of Everyday Life: The Limits of the Possible, Figure 13, p.132). 

3. ^{^}

   Malthus shares the following numbers (An Essay on the Principle of Population: The 1803 Edition, p.245-6): "In London, according to former calculations, one half of the born died under three years of age; in Vienna and Stockholm under two; in Manchester, under five; in Norwich, under five; in Northampton, under ten. In country villages, on the contrary, half of the born live till thirty, thirty-five, forty, forty-six, and above."

4. ^{^}

   See: Robert Allen (2009) Engels’ pause: Technical change, capital accumulation, and inequality in the british industrial revolution, Figure 1