David Ricardo: Price

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

David Ricardo

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter XVII, Taxes on Other Commodities, p. 168

Beer

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

David Ricardo

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter XXIV, The Rent of Land, p. 220

“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

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter XXII, Bounties and Prohibitions, p. 201

Home

“LABOUR, like all other things which are purchased and sold, and which may be increased or diminished in quantity, has its natural and its market price. The natural price of labour is that price which is necessary to enable the labourers, on with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.”

David Ricardo

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter V, On Wages, p. 52

Nature

“The opinions that the price of commodities depends solely on the proportion of supply and demand, or demand to supply, has become almost an axiom in political economy, and has been the source of much error in that science.”

David Ricardo

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter XXX, Influence of Demand and Supply, p. 260

Error , Science , Dependency

“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

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter XVII, Taxes on Other Commodities, p. 161 (see also.. Consumption 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

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter XVI, Taxes on Wages, p. 141

Food , Dependency

“The price of corn will naturally rise with the difficulty of producing the last portions of it,…”

David Ricardo

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter XXXII, Malthus on Rent, p. 276

Nature

“Population regulates itself by the funds which are to employ it, and therefore always increases or diminishes with the increase or the diminution of capital. Every reduction of capital is therefore necessarily followed by a less effective demand for corn, by a fall in price, and by diminished cultivation.”

David Ricardo

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter II, On Rent, p. 41