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Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold, has its natural and its market price.

David Ricardo

If then the prosperity of the commercial classes, will most certainly lead to accumulation of capital, and the encouragement of productive industry; these can by no means be so surely obtained as by a fall in the price of corn.
DAVID RICARDO

Capital Class Commercial Encouragement Prosperity
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

Discover Farm Land Myself Pieces Productive
The exchangeable value of all commodities rises as the difficulties of their production increase.
DAVID RICARDO

Commodity exchange Increase Production Value
The variation in the value of money, however great, makes no difference in the rate of profits.
DAVID RICARDO

Greatness Money Profit Rate Value
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.
DAVID RICARDO

Cultivate Fertile Land Population Requirement Situation
It is not by the absolute quantity of produce obtained by either class, that we can correctly judge of the rate of profit, rent, and wages, but by the quantity of labour required to obtain that produce.
DAVID RICARDO

Absolute Production Quantity Rate Requirement
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

Money Reason Rise Wage Willing
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

Commodity Possession Require Source Value
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

Evidence Money Rise Value
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

Current exchange Money Prevent Variation
Gold, on the contrary, though of little use compared with air or water, will exchange for a great quantity of other goods.
DAVID RICARDO

Compare exchange Gold Goodness Greatness
If a commodity were in no way useful, – in other words, if it could in no way contribute to our gratification, – it would be destitute of exchangeable value, however scarce it might be, or whatever quantity of labour might be necessary to procure it.
DAVID RICARDO

Commodity Contribute exchange Necessary Quantity Scarce Way
The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.
DAVID RICARDO

Farmer Live Manufacture Profit Wage
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 RICARDO

Discover Doubt Fluctuation Gold Limitation Powerful Rare Silver Subject
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.
DAVID RICARDO

Capital Employment Flow Move Relative
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

Advantage Economics Growth Heart Import Manufacture Principle

Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold, has its natural and its market price.

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Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold, has its natural and its market price.

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Popular Authors

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