Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it.
DAVID RICARDOThe farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.
More David Ricardo Quotes
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There can be no greater error then in supposing that capital is increased by non-consumption.
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 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 -
Neither a state nor a bank ever have had unrestricted power of issuing paper money without abusing that power.
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 -
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.
DAVID RICARDO -
The interest of the landlord is always opposed to the interests of every other class in the community.
DAVID RICARDO -
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.
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 -
Taxation under every form presents but a choice of evils.
DAVID RICARDO -
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.
DAVID RICARDO -
Profits are not made by differential cleverness, but by differential stupidity.
DAVID RICARDO -
Again two manufacturers may employ the same amount of fixed, and the same amount of circulating capital; but the durability of their fixed capitals may be very unequal.
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 -
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