Malthus avant Malthus. Concepts et comportements prémalthusiens dans la France d'Ancien Régime

Jacqueline Hecht : Malthus before Malthus. Concepts and behaviour of Premalthusians in prerevolutionary France. From the Renaissance to the mid-17th Century, populationist mercantilism reigned virtually unchallenged in France. However, at the end of the 17th Century there appeared the first signs of pre-Malthusian concepts and even behaviour (economic analyses in terms of supply of the means of subsistence, minimum salary and declining productivity ; demographic analyses in terms of geometrical progression and destructive obstacles ; the search for the maximum of comfort and happiness ; and later marriage, even permanent celibacy). But by retaining an optimistic perspective and substituting artificial for moral restraint, both theo¬ rists and French couples finally demonstrated the failure of pre-Malthusianism in France.