David Ricardo
David Ricardo
David Ricardowas an English political economist. He was one of the most influential of the classical economists, along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, and James Mill...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionNon-Fiction Author
Date of Birth18 April 1772
demand quantity values
The demand for money is regulated entirely by its value, and its value by its quantity.
commodity increase taxes
To alter the money value of commodities, by altering the value of money, and yet to raise the same money amount by taxes, is then undoubtedly to increase the burthens of society.
fall wages capacity
The factors left out of the Ricardian equation are falling wages and idle capacity.
land agriculture together
Whenever, then, the usual and ordinary rate of the profits of agricultural stock, and all the outgoings belonging to the cultivation of land, are together equal to the value of the whole produce, there can be no rent.
fall luxury wages
But a tax on luxuries would no other effect than to raise their price. It would fall wholly on the consumer, and could neither increase wages nor lower profits.
lasts return portions
For price is everywhere regulated by the return obtained by this last portion of capital, for which no rent whatever is paid.
gold arbitrary scarcity
Gold and silver, like other commodities, have an intrinsic value, which is not arbitrary, but is dependent on their scarcity, the quantity of labour bestowed in procuring them, and the value of the capital employed in the mines which produce them.
land firsts population
After all the fertile land in the immediate neighbourhood of the first settlers were cultivated, if capital and population increased, more food would be required, and it could only be procured from land not so advantageously situated.
real wages reason
A rise in wages, from an alteration in the value of money, produces a general effect on price, and for that reason it produces no real effect whatever on profits.
moving employment moved-on
During the period of capital moving from one employment to another, the profits on that to which capital is flowing will be relatively high, but will continue so no longer than till the requisite capital is obtained.
law division inquiry
Called an inquiry into the laws which determine the division of the produce...
agriculture cost might
Profits might also increase, because improvements might take place in agriculture, or in the implements of husbandry, which would augment the produce with the same cost of production.
demand connections clear
But it is clear that the price of labour has no necessary connection with the price of food, since it depends entirely on the supply of labourers compared with the demand.
home corn consumers
A BOUNTY on the exportation of corn tends to lower its price to the foreign consumer, but it has no permanent effect on its price in the home market.