A Weimar world is also a Malthusian world. There is no philosopher as reviled among the educated elite of both the Left and Right than Thomas Robert Malthus, whose essay published in 1798, On the Principle of Population, as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society, is considered the epitome of pessimism and determinism. Malthus continues to be ridiculed for claiming that while population increases geometrically, food supplies increase only arithmetically, so that humankind risks eventual shortages and starvation.
