black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

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

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
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, 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
If a tax on malt would raise the price of beer, a tax on bread must raise the price of bread.
DAVID RICARDO

Beer Food Price Raise Tax
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 demand for money is regulated entirely by its value, and its value by its quantity.
DAVID RICARDO

Demand Quantity 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
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

Class Commercial Commodity Degree Demand Greatness Home
The exchangeable value of all commodities rises as the difficulties of their production increase.
DAVID RICARDO

Commodity exchange Increase Production Value
For price is everywhere regulated by the return obtained by this last portion of capital, for which no rent whatever is paid.
DAVID RICARDO

Capital Pay Portion Price
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
Money is neither a material to work upon nor a tool to work with.
DAVID RICARDO

Material Money Tools Work
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
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
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

Discover Farm Land Myself Pieces Productive
Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits.
DAVID RICARDO

Contribute Country Happiness Prosperity
It 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 RICARDO

Absolute Production Quantity Rate Requirement
The price of corn will naturally rise with the difficulty of producing the last portions of it.
DAVID RICARDO

Natural Portion Price
Profits are not made by differential cleverness, but by differential stupidity.
DAVID RICARDO

Clever Different Profit Stupidity
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
There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down.
DAVID RICARDO

Profit Wage Way Yourself
Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it.
DAVID RICARDO

Essential exchange Measurement Value
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
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
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
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
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

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More David Ricardo Quotes