David Ricardo Quotes

The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.

Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits.

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

There is no way of keeping profits up but by keeping wages down.

Neither a state nor a bank ever have had unrestricted power of issuing paper money without abusing that power.

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

Profits are not made by differential cleverness, but by differential stupidity.

Money is neither a material to work upon nor a tool to work with.

The exchangeable value of all commodities rises as the difficulties of their production increase.

There can be no greater error then in supposing that capital is increased by non-consumption.

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.

Labour, like all other things which are purchased and sold... has its natural and its market price.

The interest of the landlord is always opposed to the interests of every other class in the community.

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.

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.

Taxation under every form presents but a choice of evils.

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.

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.

The price of corn will naturally rise with the difficulty of producing the last portions of it.

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

Every transaction in commerce is an independent transaction.

Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it.

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.

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.

Gold, on the contrary, though of little use compared with air or water, will exchange for a great quantity of other goods.

The demand for money is regulated entirely by its value, and its value by its quantity.

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.

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?

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.

Possessing utility, commodities derive their exchangeable value from two sources: from their scarcity, and from the quantity of labour required to obtain them.

The variation in the value of money, however great, makes no difference in the rate of profits.

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.

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.

The factors left out of the Ricardian equation are falling wages and idle capacity.

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.

For price is everywhere regulated by the return obtained by this last portion of capital, for which no rent whatever is paid.

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.

The wheat bought by a farmer to sow is comparatively a fixed capital to the wheat purchased by a baker to make into loaves.

Called an inquiry into the laws which determine the division of the produce.

...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.

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.

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.

The rise or fall of wages is common to all states of society, whether it be the stationary, the advancing, or the retrograde state.