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 RICARDOIf 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.
More David Ricardo Quotes
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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 -
Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold, has its natural and its market price.
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 -
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 -
But a rise in the wages of labour would not equally affect commodities produced with machinery quickly consumed, and commodities produced with machinery slowly consumed.
DAVID RICARDO -
Money is neither a material to work upon nor a tool to work with.
DAVID RICARDO -
I wish that I may never think the smiles of the great and powerful a sufficient inducement to turn aside from the straight path of honesty and the convictions of my own mind.
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 -
Rent is the portion of the earth, which is paid to the landlord for the user of the original and indestructible powers of the soil
DAVID RICARDO -
The factors left out of the Ricardian equation are falling wages and idle capacity.
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 -
As the revenue of the farmer is realized in raw produce, or in the value of raw produce, he is interested, as well as the landlord, in its high exchangeable value, but a low price of produce may be compensated to him by a great additional quantity.
DAVID RICARDO -
Called an inquiry into the laws which determine the division of the produce.
DAVID RICARDO -
The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.
DAVID RICARDO