What role they still play today

The social situation of the British population was also severely affected by the consequences of the Napoleonic Wars. Faced with the question of how the authorities should deal with this phenomenon, Malthus advocated abolishing the existing (Elizabethan) poor law, which in his eyes contributed to the explosion in the number of poor people, since this basic security only created an incentive to bring even more people into the country the world for which the existing food scope will no longer be sufficient in the foreseeable future. Then diseases, epidemics and hunger would lead to a drastic reduction in the population until it had finally shrunk to such an extent that the available food supply would be sufficient to feed them again. Before it gets to that point, it would be better to prevent the population pressure from increasing so much through appropriate regulations (marriage age, etc.) and through material incentives (removal of automatic support for the poor).