David Ricardo Quotes

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
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
Every transaction in commerce is an independent transaction.
DAVID RICARDO

Commerce Independent Transaction
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
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
A BOUNTY on the exportation of corn tends to lower its price to the foreign consumer, but it has no permanent effect on its price in the home market.
DAVID RICARDO

Consumer Export Foreign Home Marketing Permanent Price
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
Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it.
DAVID RICARDO

Essential exchange Measurement Value
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
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 demand for money is regulated entirely by its value, and its value by its quantity.
DAVID RICARDO

Demand Quantity Value
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
Profits are not made by differential cleverness, but by differential stupidity.
DAVID RICARDO

Clever Different Profit Stupidity
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
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

Earth Original Paid Rent Soil
Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits.
DAVID RICARDO

Contribute Country Happiness Prosperity
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
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
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
There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down.
DAVID RICARDO

Profit Wage Way Yourself
Like all other contracts, wages should be left to the fair and free competition of themarket, and should never be controlled by the interference of the legislature.
DAVID RICARDO

Competition Contract Control Freedom Legislature Wage
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
Profits 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.
DAVID RICARDO

Agriculture Husband Improvement Profit
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
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
There can be no rise in the value of labour without a fall of profits.
DAVID RICARDO

Fall Labour Profit Rise Value

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