An Essay on the Principle of Population
Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off. It derives from the political and economic thought of the Malthus, as laid out in his 1798 writings, "An Essay on the Principle of Population". Malthus believed there were two types of ever-present "checks" that are continuously at work, limiting population growth based on food supply at any given time: