People always say this, but it isn't true. Malthus lived in a time of quickly increasing productivity, he of course knew crop yields, etc. would likely increas

People always say this, but it isn't true. Malthus lived in a time of quickly increasing productivity, he of course knew crop yields, etc. would likely increase. But he also knew there were eventual limits to that increase, the Earth only gets so many watts of solar energy, only has so much land area to cultivate, etc. So he thought that the exponential growth of human pop. would necessarily eventually hit those limits. Indeed, Malthus actually ages better then he's given credit for. His solution to the problem he poses is pretty close to the modern one, that a more educated and well-off population will decrease their fertility, so that eventually population growth will level off. (Malthus's actual view of the mechanism here is pretty Victorian, he talks a lot about "Public Morality" and I don't think he mentions "birth-control" in any form, but his basic idea is correct)