“Mr. Malthus says, " It has been justly observed by Adam Smith that no equal quantity of productive labour employed in manufactures can ever occasion so great a reproduction as in agriculture. " If Adam Smith speaks of value, he is correct; but if he speaks of riches, which is the important point, he is mistaken; for he has himself defined riches to consist of the necessaries, conveniences, and enjoyments of human life. One set of necessaries and conveniences admits of no comparison with another set; value in use cannot be measured by any known standard; it is differently estimated by different persons.”

— David Ricardo

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter XXXII, Malthus on Rent, p. 292

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David Ricardo 37

British political economist, broker and politician 1772–1823

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“The celebrated Adam Smith was the first to point out the immense increase of production, and the superior perfection of products referable to this division of labour.”

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767–1832) French economist and businessman

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book I, On Production, Chapter VIII, p. 91

“Gandhi rejects the Adam Smith notion of human nature as motivated by self-interest and brute needs and returns us to our spiritual dimension with its impulses for nonviolence, justice and equality.
He exposes the fallacy of the claim that everyone can be rich and successful provided they work hard. He points to the millions who work themselves to the bone and still remain hungry.”

Nelson Mandela (1918–2013) President of South Africa, anti-apartheid activist

2000s, The Sacred Warrior (2000)

“If I have to hire a labourer for a week, and instead of ten shillings I pay him eight, no variation having taken place in the value of money, the labourer can probably obtain more food and necessaries with his eight shillings than he before obtained for ten: but this is owing, not to a rise in the real value of his wages, as stated by Adam Smith, and more recently by Mr. Malthus, but to a fall in the value of the things on which his wages are expended, things perfectly distinct; and yet for calling this a fall in the real value of wages, I am told that I adopt new and unusual language, not reconcilable with the true principals of the science. To me it appears that the unusual and, indeed, inconsistent language is that used by my opponents.”

David Ricardo (1772–1823) British political economist, broker and politician

Source: The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1821) (Third Edition), Chapter I, Section I, On Value, p. 11

“Adam Smith, Say, and especially C. J. Kraus, one of the best teachers of Adam Smith’s theory, are my guides. The aim of my work is to present, in my own arrangement, their writings and thoughts clearly and plainly, together with some of my own observations.”

Fryderyk Skarbek (1792–1866) Polish noble

Introduction: Cited in: Hiroshi Mizuta, A Critical Bibliography of Adam Smith, Routledge, 20116. p. 173.
National Household, 1820

“We're supposed to worship Adam Smith but you're not supposed to read him. That's too dangerous. He's a dangerous radical.”

Noam Chomsky (1928) american linguist, philosopher and activist

Talk at Brown University (April 2010) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBfHD2n13OA
Quotes 2010s, 2010

“…where are we to look for the consumption required but among the unproductive labourers of Adam Smith?…”

Thomas Robert Malthus Principles of Political Economy

Book II, Chapter I, On the Progress of Wealth, Section IX, p. 406
Principles of Political Economy (Second Edition 1836)

“When Adam Smith was being incomprehensible, he didn't have the luxury of brief, snappy technical terms as a shorthand for incoherence.”

P. J. O'Rourke (1947) American journalist

Source: On The Wealth of Nations (2007), Chapter 2: "Why Is The Wealth of Nations So Damn Long?", p. 22

“Another good thing about gossip is that it is within everybody's reach,
And it is much more interesting than any other form of speech,
Because suppose you eschew gossip and just say
Mr. Smith is in love with his wife.
Why that disposes the Smiths as a topic of conversation for the rest of their life,
But suppose you say with a smile, that poor little Mrs. Smith thinks her husband is in love with her, he must be very clever,
Why then you can enjoyably talk about the Smiths forever.”

Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet

I'm a Stranger Here Myself (1938), I Have It On Good Authority

“Adam Smith and Malthus and Ricardo! There is something about these three figures to evoke more than ordinary sentiments from us their children in the spirit.”

John Maynard Keynes (1883–1946) British economist

Source: Essays In Biography (1933), Robert Malthus: The First of the Cambridge Economists, p. 148

“The phrase laissez-faire is not to be found in the works of Adam Smith, of Ricardo, or of Malthus. Even the idea is not present in a dogmatic form in any of these authors. Adam Smith, of course, was a Free Trader and an opponent of many eighteenth-century restrictions on trade. But his attitude towards the Navigation Acts and the usury laws shows that he was not dogmatic. Even his famous passage about 'the invisible hand' reflects the philosophy which we associate with Paley rather than the economic dogma of laissez-faire.”

John Maynard Keynes book Essays in Persuasion

Source: Essays in Persuasion (1931), The End of Laissez-faire (1926), Ch. 2

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