“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

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David Ricardo 37

British political economist, broker and politician 1772–1823

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

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

“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.”

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

“But if the labourers could live on air they could not be bought at any price.”

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“To unstable money are to be traced nearly all our economic troubles since 1918: the unemployment of the inter-war period; the over-employment and scarcity of labour since the Second World War; the labour unrest incidental to perpetual wage demands; the hardships and dislocation caused by the declining value of small savings, annuities and endowments; the vexation of continual price rises even for those whose incomes on the whole keep pace with them; the collapse of the prices of Government securities through distrust of the unit in which they are valued.”

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“Labour was the first price, the original purchase-money that was paid for all things.”

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It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all the wealth of the world was originally purchased; and its value, to those who possess it, and who want to exchange it for some new productions, is precisely equal to the quantity of labour which it can enable them to purchase or command.
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“I feel no doubt whatever that the parish laws of England have contributed to raise the price of provisions and to lower the real price of labour.”

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Source: An Essay on The Principle of Population (First Edition 1798, unrevised), Chapter V, paragraph 13, lines 1-3

“Which comes first — price being set by the intersection of supply and demand, or individual firms equating marginal cost to price?”

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Source: Debunking Economics - The Naked Emperor Of The Social Sciences (2001), Chapter 4, Size Does Matter, p. 101

“Demand and supply are the opposite extremes of the beam, whence depend the scales of dearness and cheapness; the price is the point of equilibrium, where the momentum of the one ceases, and that of the other begins.”

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

Source: A Treatise On Political Economy (Fourth Edition) (1832), Book II, On Distribution, Chapter I, p. 290

“Thou, O God, dost sell us all good things at the price of labour.”

Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath

The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.

“Supply and demand constantly determine the prices of commodities; never balance, or only coincidentally; but the cost of production, for its part, determines the oscillations of supply and demand.”

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Grundrisse (1857-1858)
Source: Notebook I, The Chapter on Money, p. 58.

“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.”

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