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 RICARDOProfits 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 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.
DAVID RICARDOIt 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 RICARDOWhenever, then, the usual and ordinary rate of the profits of agricultural stock, and all the outgoings belonging to the cultivation of land, are together equal to the value of the whole produce, there can be no rent.
DAVID RICARDOIf 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 RICARDOAgain 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 RICARDOIf 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 RICARDOThe farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.
DAVID RICARDOIf a tax on malt would raise the price of beer, a tax on bread must raise the price of bread.
DAVID RICARDOFor price is everywhere regulated by the return obtained by this last portion of capital, for which no rent whatever is paid.
DAVID RICARDOBut 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 RICARDOThe factors left out of the Ricardian equation are falling wages and idle capacity.
DAVID RICARDOWhenever 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 RICARDOThe wheat bought by a farmer to sow is comparatively a fixed capital to the wheat purchased by a baker to make into loaves.
DAVID RICARDOIt 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 RICARDOGold 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