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====Marxist opposition====

====Marxist opposition====

[[Robert Owen]], and the British proto-socialists, disagrees sharply with Malthus. [[Karl Marx]], the founder of modern [[socialism]], argued that population depends, like everything else, on the ownership of the means of production.  This implied there can be no independent laws of population, hence Malthus must be dead wrong. Since poverty could never be the fault of the workers, it had to be blamed on capitalism.  Furthermore, if workers reduced their numbers (by having fewer children), they would be politically weakened.  Marxism believed that class conflict would eventually cause the overthrow of capitalism.  Socialism will ensue, they promised, and cure all evils.<ref> Samuel Hollander, "Marx and Malthusianism: Marx's Secular Path of Wages." ''American Economic Review'' 1984 74(1): 139-151. Issn: 0002-8282 Fulltext: in Jstor and Ebsco</ref>  

[[Robert Owen]], and the British proto-socialists, disagrees sharply with Malthus. [[Karl Marx]], the founder of modern [[socialism]], argued that population depends, like everything else, on the ownership of the means of production.  This implied there can be no independent laws of population, hence Malthus must be dead wrong. Since poverty could never be the fault of the workers, it had to be blamed on capitalism.  Furthermore, if workers reduced their numbers (by having fewer children), they would be politically weakened.  Marxism believed that [[class conflict]] would eventually cause the overthrow of capitalism.  Socialism will ensue, they promised, and cure all evils.<ref> Samuel Hollander, "Marx and Malthusianism: Marx's Secular Path of Wages." ''American Economic Review'' 1984 74(1): 139-151. Issn: 0002-8282 Fulltext: in Jstor and Ebsco</ref>  

After the 1840s the Marxists tried to counter the influence of the Malthusians. Marx set the tone by vehemently ridiculing Malthus as guilty of spreading a "vile and infamous doctrine, this repulsive blasphemy against man and nature."  Marx said that overpopulation can only occur under capitalism, because the capitalists want a large surplus population of workers (the unemployed constituted a "reserve army of labor”) in order to keep wages low and profits high. Under socialism, Marx argued, there would be a perfect harmony of interests, and a population of any size could be supported. The reason was because the surplus product of labor, previously stolen by the capitalists, would be returned to its rightful owners, the workers, thereby eliminating the cause of poverty.  (This was the sort of utopianism that Malthus was trying to undercut.)

After the 1840s the Marxists tried to counter the influence of the Malthusians. Marx set the tone by vehemently ridiculing Malthus as guilty of spreading a "vile and infamous doctrine, this repulsive blasphemy against man and nature."  Marx said that overpopulation can only occur under capitalism, because the capitalists want a large surplus population of workers (the unemployed constituted a "reserve army of labor”) in order to keep wages low and profits high. Under socialism, Marx argued, there would be a perfect harmony of interests, and a population of any size could be supported. The reason was because the surplus product of labor, previously stolen by the capitalists, would be returned to its rightful owners, the workers, thereby eliminating the cause of poverty.  (This was the sort of utopianism that Malthus was trying to undercut.)