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There can be no rise in the value of labour without a fall of profits.

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

Commodity Doubt Increase Money Value
There can be no rise in the value of labour without a fall of profits.
DAVID RICARDO

Fall Labour Profit Rise Value
Money is neither a material to work upon nor a tool to work with.
DAVID RICARDO

Material Money Tools Work
Called an inquiry into the laws which determine the division of the produce.
DAVID RICARDO

Determination Division Law Production
During the period of capital moving from one employment to another, the profits on that to which capital is flowing will be relatively high, but will continue so no longer than till the requisite capital is obtained.
DAVID RICARDO

Capital Employment Flow Move Relative
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
The variation in the value of money, however great, makes no difference in the rate of profits.
DAVID RICARDO

Greatness Money Profit Rate Value
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 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 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
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
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
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
Profits are not made by differential cleverness, but by differential stupidity.
DAVID RICARDO

Clever Different Profit Stupidity
In the same manner if any nation wasted part of its wealth, or lost part of its trade, it could not retain the same quantity of circulating medium which it before possessed.
DAVID RICARDO

Nation Possession Quantity Wasted Time
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
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
But it is clear that the price of labour has no necessary connection with the price of food, since it depends entirely on the supply of labourers compared with the demand.
DAVID RICARDO

Clear Compare Connection Demand Labor Necessary Price
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

Capital Class Commercial Encouragement Prosperity
There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down.
DAVID RICARDO

Profit Wage Way Yourself
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

Money Reason Rise Wage Willing
The factors left out of the Ricardian equation are falling wages and idle capacity.
DAVID RICARDO

Capacity Equation Factor
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
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

Commodity Enjoyment Increase Trade Value
Whether a bank lent one million, ten million, or a hundred millions, they would not permanently alter the market rate of interest; they would alter only the value of the money they issued.
DAVID RICARDO

Bank Issue Loan Money Value
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

Money Production Profit Real Rise Value
Neither a state nor a bank ever have had unrestricted power of issuing paper money without abusing that power.
DAVID RICARDO

Abuse Bank Power State

There can be no rise in the value of labour without a fall of profits.

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There can be no rise in the value of labour without a fall of profits.

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