In (partial) defense of Malthus, at the time he wrote he was more or less accurate.
1798 was right at the start of the Industrial Revolution and right in the middle of a huge UK population explosion. It is not reasonable to expect him to have been able to foresee how industrial and agricultural technology would change things.
IOW, projecting the situation when he wrote into the future, he was more or less right.
If you study Chinese history, you see a series of Malthusian events, with population pressures at the root of disruptions that eventually bring down a dynasty, the resultant chaos resulting in 50% to 75% drop in population.
New dynasty eventually emerges, brings stability, population growth resumes. Rinse and repeat.
IOW, most of the criticism of Malthus is based on 20/20 hindsight.
I should also have pointed out that when Malthus wrote no society had yet been through the demographic transition by which rising prosperity results in a drastic drop in the birth rate. There was no particular reason for him to believe that increased prosperity would result in anything other than increased survival rate of children, worsening the over-population problem.
If the USA had maintained the birth rate it had when Malthus wrote till now, we’d have somewhere around 1B people, quite probably a good deal more as the death rate declined.
Well, of course he was wrong. The point is that his view of humanity neglected to account for human ingenuity.
I've referred, in the past, to the "herd of deer" fallacy.
The rains stopped, the grasses withered, and the herd of deer died of starvation.
Malthus thought of us as nothing more than a herd of deer. Man attempts to innovate when faced with hardship. Malthus doesn't deserve defending.