More Than They Produce

There must therefore be a considerable class of persons who have both the will and power to consume more material wealth than they produce, or the mercantile classes could not continue profitably to produce so much more than they consume.

-- Thomas Robert Malthus (1766 - 1834), English demographer and political economist best known for his pessimistic but highly influential views on population growth, Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836), Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section IX, p. 400