Abstract

This essay analyses the problem of ‘regulation’ as it emerges in Malthus’ political economy. It is addressed the way he conceptualized ‘rent’ as a providential regulator of capital accumulation which must always be artificially sustained by government. Starting from an analysis of the essays Malthus published in 1815, this contribution then put them in relation with the definition of ‘crisis’ emerging in the Principles of Political Economy. Through this intellectual trajectory, the author developed a conception of ‘crisis’ as an ‘irregularity’ which is part and parcel of the ‘regular’ progress of wealth. Governments’ intervention is thus defined by Malthus as being both an ‘exception’, and a necessary tool to ensure the political and social conditions of the regular progress of capital accumulation. Lastly, the role of equilibrators of the economic cycle he attributed to the landlords highlights the attempt to make rents the expression of a power which is deemed essential to ‘redeem’ capital, thus to regulate the crises it tends to produce.