Thomas Malthus (1766 - 1834) was the author of the economic models which stated that, up to a point, the pace of growth of the world's population would exceed its capacity of producing food (given a fixed endownment of resources for such production and some specific technology level). This scenario would trigger demographic crises and population checks in the future, and people would even die for starvation until the balance could be restored.
He did not consider, though, that the endowment of resources and the technology could be enlargened and improved through innovation and scientific procedures, and how that would lead to productivity gains and to the production of more than enough food to feed everyone on earth (at least enough food in terms of quantities). The fact that nowadays not everybody is properly fed in the world, does not answer to a lack of food produced but to a wrong manner of distributing it.
Excise taxes are set in place to discourage the sale of certain items that the government feels are bad for you. An example of this is cigarettes and alcohol.
