The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.
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.
More David Ricardo Quotes
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A rise in wages, from an alteration in the value of money, produces a general effect on price, and for that reason it produces no real effect whatever on profits.
DAVID RICARDO -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down.
DAVID RICARDO -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Taxation under every form presents but a choice of evils.
DAVID RICARDO -
The interest of the landlord is always opposed to the interests of every other class in the community.
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 -
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