Criticism
Carlyle's view was attacked by John Stuart Mill as making a virtue of toil itself, stunting the development of the weak, and committing the "vulgar error of imputing every difference which he finds among human beings to an original difference of nature."
The teachings of Malthus eventually became known under the umbrella phrase "Malthus' Dismal Theorem". While some argue that his predictions were forestalled by dramatic improvements in the efficiency of food production in the 20th century during the Green Revolution, classical liberal economists argue that the law of supply and demand would mean that if the supply of food were to decline, the price of food would then rise, thereby allowing for a gradual adjustment in consumption and preventing an all out famine.
Read more about this topic: The Dismal Science
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“It is from the womb of art that criticism was born.”
—Charles Baudelaire (18211867)
“I, with other Americans, have perhaps unduly resented the stream of criticism of American life ... more particularly have I resented the sneers at Main Street. For I have known that in the cottages that lay behind the street rested the strength of our national character.”
—Herbert Hoover (18741964)
“It is ... pathetic to observe the complete lack of imagination on the part of certain employers and men and women of the upper-income levels, equally devoid of experience, equally glib with their criticism ... directed against workers, labor leaders, and other villains and personal devils who are the objects of their dart-throwing. Who doesnt know the wealthy woman who fulminates against the idle workers who just wont get out and hunt jobs?”
—Mary Barnett Gilson (1877?)