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 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.
More David Ricardo Quotes
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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 -
Every transaction in commerce is an independent transaction.
DAVID RICARDO -
Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits.
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 -
The price of corn will naturally rise with the difficulty of producing the last portions of it.
DAVID RICARDO -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
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 -
Gold, on the contrary, though of little use compared with air or water, will exchange for a great quantity of other goods.
DAVID RICARDO -
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 -
Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it.
DAVID RICARDO