Jim Menegay  wrote:

> john_SPAM{at}wilkins.id.au (John Wilkins) wrote:
> > Jim Menegay  wrote:
> > > I still don't quite see that you have supported your claim that 
> > > > > >Malthus thought that economic selection would
> > > > > >generate fitter individuals.
> > 
> > Jim, I mention fitness (in the non-evolutionary sense, but rather one of
> > being as healthy as one can be and suited for one's environment) several
> > times above. Malthus thinks that economic selection will generate fitter
> > individuals. But note that the term "fitness" here in
the population
> > genetics sense is post-Fisher. Prior to that, it means what it means
> > above.
> [snip]
> > I think you are conflating the two meanings of "fit"
here - I took care
> > to be precise: [snip]
> 
> I am sorry if I seem dense here.  I was trying to be equally precise in
> using only the pre-Fisher sense of "fit".  To avoid future confusion,
> let us eliminate all use of this word, and substitute "healthy".

"and adapted to one's environment"
> 
> I accept your two premises:
> 1. Malthus believed that malnutrition leads to unhealth.
> 2. Malthus believed that foresight leads to health.
> 
> I don't understand the logic leading to your conclusion:
> 3. Malthus believed that economic selection would lead to increased
> health.

Because it would apply the positive checks to the unhealthy, leaving a
higher average health in the remaining population.
> 
> I believe that the real difficulty here is that you are assuming that
> we have a shared understanding of the term "economic selection", 
> whereas actually I have no idea what this phrase is intended to mean.
> I think I understand that it was not Malthus's term, but rather a
> coinage of later commentators, but that doesn't help me to understand
> it.
> 
> In economic analysis, the term "selection" is rarely used.  When it is
> used, it is almost always in discussing the fate of firms or enterprises.
> There, it is used in Spencer's sense.  I have never seen the term used
> in an analysis of the unskilled labor market or in an analysis of the
> causes of poverty.

It is possible I am importing Spencerian terms and ideas back into
Malthus. But he does say that checks to population increase will address
the problems of undernourished and underdeveloped laborers, at the
least.
> 
> Perhaps a second cause of my failure to understand you is that I come
> into this with a preconceived notion (I am willing to be corrected) that
> Malthus thought that poverty is inevitable.  Poverty is, after all, a
> necessary component of both of his actual checks on population growth -
> foresight and child mortality.  Even if poverty could somehow be 
> alleviated in the short term, the long term effect would be dire.
> And, furthermore, while a short term artificial increase in poverty in
> this generation might actually decrease poverty in the next generation,
> the long term problem remains.

But if positive checks of want and misery and vice are allowed to
operate, then there will be *less* remaining poverty (so he claims -
this is not a defence of Malthus).
> 
> Therefore, the only mechanism which I can imagine Malthus thinking
> would be effective in increasing the level of health would be something
> that shifts the balance in favor of his preferred check - foresight -
> and decreasing the importance of the more vicious checking mechanism
> involving malnutrition and child mortality.
> 
> I would have thought that he would have suggested "exhortation"
> as the only available mechanism for producing this shift.  I don't
> see any way that "economic selection" would produce the shift - but
> perhaps there is some subtlety in your use of the term that I don't
> understand yet.
> 
> I hope this clarifies why I seem to be obstinate on this.

Sure. I think we are now disagreeing on what sort of selection is in
play. I think Malthus thought it would weed out the unfit/unhealthy, and
so the average fitness of the population would thus rise. This is how I
read him. It is possible I am doing the eisegesis here. I never did
study economics.
-- 
John Wilkins
john_SPAM{at}wilkins.id.au   http://www.wilkins.id.au
"Men mark it when they hit, but do not mark it when they miss" 
                                               - Francis Bacon
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