Letters of David Ricardo to Thomas Robert Malthus, 1810-1823 (Volume 2) (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1887. Excerpt: ... millions of men would be now required instead of two-anda-half millions. Suppose now eaoh man to consume one quarter annually for food and to exchange the remainder for other necessaries. Fourteen bushels will be sufficient wages for him1; the expenditure of corn for wages will then be for fifteen millions of produce 7.875.000, and for ten millions 5.250.000. Before, it was only five millions; consequently the proportion of surplus produce has diminished. In making this calculation I have very much favoured your view of the question, because the price of corn would not, I think, rise in proportion to the greater number of men employed but to the greater amount of wages paid; it would not therefore rise to 4 16s., but to 4 4s., because as 5: 5i:: 4: 4 4%. But, if the price was only 4 4s., more corn would be required by the labourer than fourteen bushels, that calculation being founded on a greater exchangeable value of corn. It appears too that your statement if true does not account for the less proportion of the population now employed upon the land, because you always suppose more men to be employed but at less corn wages. It can never happen, I think, that profits can fall and encourage the cultivation of poor land in the manner assumed in my table without a rise in the price of corn. It is by the rise of the price of corn that all other profits are regulated to agricultural profits. If the price of corn remained low, money wages would not rise, and general profits could not fall. If it be true that capital ha3 become more and more productive on the land, it can, I think, only be accounted for on the supposition that great improvements have taken place in agriculture, and that wages have been kept moderate by the improveme...