Gold and silver are no doubt subject to fluctuations, from the discovery of new and more abundant mines; but such discoveries are rare, and their effects, though powerful, are limited to periods of comparatively short duration.
DAVID RICARDOThe exchangeable value of all commodities rises as the difficulties of their production increase.
More David Ricardo Quotes
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A rise of wages from this cause will, indeed, be invariably accompanied by a rise in the price of commodities; but in such cases, it will be found that labour and all commodities have not varied in regard to each other, and that the variation has been confined to money.
DAVID RICARDO -
Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold, has its natural and its market price.
DAVID RICARDO -
There can be no rise in the value of labour without a fall of profits.
DAVID RICARDO -
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.
DAVID RICARDO -
There can be no greater error then in supposing that capital is increased by non-consumption.
DAVID RICARDO -
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.
DAVID RICARDO -
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.
DAVID RICARDO -
The demand for money is regulated entirely by its value, and its value by its quantity.
DAVID RICARDO -
The variation in the value of money, however great, makes no difference in the rate of profits.
DAVID RICARDO -
Possessing utility, commodities derive their exchangeable value from two sources: from their scarcity, and from the quantity of labour required to obtain them.
DAVID RICARDO -
The interest of the landlord is always opposed to the interests of every other class in the community.
DAVID RICARDO -
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.
DAVID RICARDO -
It is here we come to the heart of the matter. The economic principle of comparative advantage’, ‘a country may, in return for manufactured commodities, import corn even if it can be grown with less labour than in the country from which it is imported.
DAVID RICARDO -
Like all other contracts, wages should be left to the fair and free competition of themarket, and should never be controlled by the interference of the legislature.
DAVID RICARDO -
Gold, on the contrary, though of little use compared with air or water, will exchange for a great quantity of other goods.
DAVID RICARDO -
The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.
DAVID RICARDO -
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.
DAVID RICARDO -
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.
DAVID RICARDO -
In the same manner if any nation wasted part of its wealth, or lost part of its trade, it could not retain the same quantity of circulating medium which it before possessed.
DAVID RICARDO -
The price of corn will naturally rise with the difficulty of producing the last portions of it.
DAVID RICARDO -
If the demand for home commodities should be diminished, because of the fall of rent on the part of the landlords, it will be increased in a far greater degree by the increased opulence of the commercial classes.
DAVID RICARDO -
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?
DAVID RICARDO -
Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it.
DAVID RICARDO -
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.
DAVID RICARDO -
Whether a bank lent one million, ten million, or a hundred millions, they would not permanently alter the market rate of interest; they would alter only the value of the money they issued.
DAVID RICARDO -
The wheat bought by a farmer to sow is comparatively a fixed capital to the wheat purchased by a baker to make into loaves.
DAVID RICARDO