L4 Speaking Task # 2

Opened: Thursday, 7 April 2016, 1:00 AM
Receive a grade

Begin by reading the passage in the box below. Do not exceed 45 seconds. You can use the clock on the right to time yourself.

  • Next listen to a lecture about the topic in the passage by clicking the start button in the recording section below. You may take notes as you listen.

  • Then record your response by clicking the "Add Submission" button at the bottom of the page.

  • If you get a Flash permission message, check "Allow" and "Close".

  • Next, click the "Record" button and begin speaking. You will have 60 seconds for your response. You may need to click "Stop" when you have finished.

  • Finally, click the "Save Changes" button at the bottom to upload your recording for grading and teacher comments.

When you are ready, put on your headset and click the start button on the audio player here to begin this speaking task.

Thomas Robert Malthus

The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus was an English scholar, influential in political economy and demography. Malthus popularized the economic theory of rent.

Malthus has become widely known for his theories about population and its increase or decrease in response to various factors. The six editions of his An Essay on the Principle of Population, published from 1798 to 1826, observed that sooner or later population gets checked by famine and disease. He wrote in opposition to the popular view in 18th-century Europe that saw society as improving and in principle as perfectible.

Malthus thought that the dangers of population growth would preclude endless progress towards a utopian society: "The power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man". As an Anglican clergyman, Malthus saw this situation as divinely imposed to teach virtuous behaviour. Malthus believed that one could not change human nature.

Malthus placed the longer-term stability of the economy above short-term expediency. He criticised the Poor Laws, and (alone among important contemporary economists) supported the Corn Laws, which introduced a system of taxes on British imports of wheat. He thought these measures would encourage domestic production, and so promote long-term benefits.

Malthus became hugely influential, and controversial, in economic, political, social and scientific thought. Many of those whom subsequent centuries term evolutionary biologists read him, notably Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace, for each of whom Malthusianism became an intellectual stepping-stone to the idea of natural selection. Malthus remains a writer of great significance and controversy.