Malthusianism

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The viewpoint that the population will always grow faster than the food supply that it needs to survive and prosper. countable, uncountable

    "“[…] The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.” [citing Dune] Gloomy Malthusianism was much in vogue in the 1960s and 70s."

  2. 2
    Malthus' theory that population increase would outpace increases in the means of subsistence wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
malthusian theory

Example

More examples

"“[…] The human question is not how many can possibly survive within the system, but what kind of existence is possible for those who do survive.” [citing Dune] Gloomy Malthusianism was much in vogue in the 1960s and 70s."

Etymology

From Malthusian + -ism.

Related phrases

Neo-Malthusianism

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.