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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

The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.
DAVID RICARDO

Farmer Live Manufacture Profit Wage
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

Greatness Honesty Mindset Powerful Thinking
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

Consume Effect Fall Luxury Price Profit Tax
Whenever, 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 RICARDO

Belong Ordinary Production Profit Rate Togetherness Value
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
I have already expressed my opinion on this subject in treating of rent, and have now only further to add, that rent is a creation of value, as I understand that word, but not a creation of wealth.
DAVID RICARDO

Creation Expression Opinion Subject Understand Wealth
The exchangeable value of all commodities rises as the difficulties of their production increase.
DAVID RICARDO

Commodity exchange Increase Production Value
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
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
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

Commodity Machine Production Rise 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
There can be no rise in the value of labour without a fall of profits.
DAVID RICARDO

Fall Labour Profit Rise Value
The price of corn will naturally rise with the difficulty of producing the last portions of it.
DAVID RICARDO

Natural Portion Price
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
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

Commodity Fall Machine Reality Value
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

Capital Farmer Purchase
There can be no greater error then in supposing that capital is increased by non-consumption.
DAVID RICARDO

Consumption Errors Greatness Increase
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

Commodity Employment Gold Production Quantity Silver 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
Taxation under every form presents but a choice of evils.
DAVID RICARDO

Choice Evil Option
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

Capital Equality Fix Man
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
Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits.
DAVID RICARDO

Contribute Country Happiness Prosperity
Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it.
DAVID RICARDO

Essential exchange Measurement Value
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

Additional exchange Farmer Production Quantity Revenue Value
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

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.

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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.

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