“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

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David Ricardo 37

British political economist, broker and politician 1772–1823

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