[Overpopulation--a cause of war? Notes on the population theory of Thomas Robert Malthus]

The relationship between Malthusian pressures and the frequency of wars in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe is examined. The author concludes that Europe at that time could easily support its population above subsistence level. "It was the political regime of absolutism which established mechanisms of income distribution that impoverished a large fraction of the society. The numerous barriers to market entry of the guild system and primogeniture as the predominant bequest rule among nobles left many young men, commoners and nobles alike, no choice but to join the army. In order to reduce the number of expensive mercenaries it was then individually rational for the princes to more or less continuously participate in militant conflicts." (summary in ENG, FRE)