An Outline of the Science of Political Economy (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. 1836 Excerpt: ...demand occasioned by the increased wants and wealth of the purchasers and the increase of the supply. During that interval the price must have risen somewhat above the price at which it would settle when the additional supply had been obtained. The appearance of that additional supply would sink it to 5 a quarter, the cost at which that supply is produced, but it could not permanently fall below that price unless a diminution should take place either in the wants or wealth of the purchasers, or in the expenses of cultivation or conveyance. All this appears almost too plain for formal statement. It is however one of the most recent discoveries in Political Science: so recent that it can scarcely be said to be universally admitted even in this Country, and that abroad it does not seem to be even comprehended. If any writer could be expected to be fully master of it it would be Say, the most distinguished of the Continental Economists, and the annotator on Ricardo. In his VOL. VI. notes to the French translation of the Principles of Political Political Economy and Taxation, he constantly objects Economy, to Mr. Ricardo's reasonings, the fact that all cultivated. T"?land pays rent; as if such a fact were inconsistent with " the existence of corn raised without the payment of Rent. rent. He repeats this objection in a note to a passage in which Ricardo has demonstrated its falsity. In the twenty-fourth chapter of the Principles, Mr. Ricardo examines Adam Smith's opinions on rent. " Adam Smith," observes Mr. Ricardo, " had adopted the notion that there were some parts of the produce of land for which the demand must always be such as to afford a greater price than what is sufficient to bring them to market; and he considered food as...