The issue is not even whether you believe Darwin or Malthus was more influential on all the people who developed opinions after their work was propagated. Malthus had a limited understanding of carrying capacity. While the physical carrying capacity of the geographical area remains the same, the actual carrying capacity of the economy has fallen.
Famine becomes a social rather than a physical phenomenon.
If you can't spend much, your needs are largely ignored. If you can spend a great deal, much more of the resources of the population will be redirected to your desires. In the case of vast spending disparities, the rich and the poor are competing for resources available in the economy, and the result is that large sectors of the economy are diverted to producing whatever frivolous luxury flavor of the month the rich are buying. Cancer cells, for example, divert so much of your body's resources that they ultimately destroy their host and, in turn, themselves.