David Ricardo
47 quotes
Biography
David Ricardo was a British economist and politician. He is recognized as one of the most influential classical economists, alongside figures such as Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith and James Mill.
"Money is neither a material to work upon nor a tool to work with."
"Sufficiently rich to satisfy all my desires and the reasonable desires of all those about me."
"The produce of the earth - all that is derived from its surface by the united application of labour, machinery, and capital, is divided among three classes of the community, namely, the proprietor of the land, the owner of the stock or capital necessary for its cultivation, and the labourers by whose industry it is cultivated."
"Adam Smith, and other able writers to whom I have alluded, not having viewed correctly the principles of rent, have, it appears to me, overlooked many important truths, which can only be discovered after the subject of rent is thoroughly understood."
"I have endeavoured to show that the ability to pay taxes depends, not on the gross money value of the mass of commodities, nor on the net money value of the revenue of capitalists and landlords, but on the money value of each man's revenue compared to the money value of the commodities which he usually consumes."
"Possessing utility, commodities derive their exchangeable value from two sources: from their scarcity, and from the quantity of labour required to obtain them."
"If I have to hire a labourer for a week, and instead of ten shillings I pay him eight, no variation having taken place in the value of money, the labourer can probably obtain more food and necessaries with his eight shillings than he before obtained for ten: but this is owing, not to a rise in the real value of his wages, as stated by Adam Smith, and more recently by Mr. Malthus, but to a fall in the value of the things on which his wages are expended, things perfectly distinct; and yet for calling this a fall in the real value of wages, I am told that I adopt new and unusual language, not reconcilable with the true principals of the science. To me it appears that the unusual and, indeed, inconsistent language is that used by my opponents."
"The wheat bought by a farmer to sow is comparatively a fixed capital to the wheat purchased by a baker to make into loaves."
"Neither machines, nor the commodities made by them, rise in real value, but all commodities made by machines fall, and fall in proportion to their durability."
"The variation in the value of money, however great, makes no difference in the rate of profits;..."
"Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil."
"Population regulates itself by the funds which are to employ it, and therefore always increases or diminishes with the increase or the diminution of capital. Every reduction of capital is therefore necessarily followed by a less effective demand for corn, by a fall in price, and by diminished cultivation."
"If I discover a manure which will enable me to make a piece of land produce 20 per cent more corn, I may withdraw at least a portion of my capital from the most unproductive part of my farm."
"It has therefore been justly observed that however honestly the coin of a country may conform to its standard, money made of gold and silver is still liable to fluctuations in value, not only to accidental, and temporary, but to permanent and natural variations, in the same manner as other commodities."
"LABOUR, like all other things which are purchased and sold, and which may be increased or diminished in quantity, has its natural and its market price. The natural price of labour is that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, on with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution."
"The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages."
"No extension of foreign trade will immediately increase the amount of value in a country, although it will very powerfully contribute to increase the mass of commodities and therefore the sum of enjoyments."
"If capital freely flowed towards those countries where it could be most profitably employed, there could be no difference in the rate of profit, and no other difference in the real or labour price of commodities, than the additional quantity of labour required to convey them to the various markets where they were to be sold. Experience, however, shews, that the fancied or real insecurity of capital, when not under the immediate control of its owner, together with the natural disinclination which every man has to quit the country of his birth and connexions, and intrust himself with all his habits fixed, to a strange government and new laws, check the emigration of capital. These feelings, which I should be sorry to see weakened, induce most men of property to be satisfied with a low rate of profits in their own country, rather than seek a more advantageous employment for their wealth in foreign nations."
"Every transaction in commerce is an independent transaction."
"Whenever the current of money is forcibly stopped, and when money is prevented from settling at its just level, there are no limits to the possible variations of the exchange."
"If English money was of the same value then as before, Hamburgh money must have risen in value. But where is the proof of this?"
"There can be no greater error then in supposing that capital is increased by non-consumption."
"The demand for money is regulated entirely by its value, and its value by its quantity."
"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."
"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."