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But a tax on luxuries would no other effect than to raise their price. It would fall wholly on the consumer, and could neither increase wages nor lower profits.

David Ricardo

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David Ricardo
Age: 50 †
Born: 1772
Born: April 19
Died: 1823
Died: January 1
Economist
Philosopher
Politician
Stockbroker
London
England
Neither
Consumers
Taxes
Raise
Effects
Luxury
Luxuries
Fall
Raises
Profits
Would
Price
Consumer
Profit
Wholly
Effect
Wages
Increase
Lower

More quotes by David Ricardo

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Profits are not made by differential cleverness, but by differential stupidity.
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A rise in wages, from an alteration in the value of money, produces a general effect on price, and for that reason it produces no real effect whatever on profits.
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The wheat bought by a farmer to sow is comparatively a fixed capital to the wheat purchased by a baker to make into loaves.
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No extension of foreign trade will immediately increase the amount of value in a country, although it will very powerfully contribute to increase the mass of commodities and therefore the sum of enjoyments.
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Profits might also increase, because improvements might take place in agriculture, or in the implements of husbandry, which would augment the produce with the same cost of production.
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A rise of wages from this cause will, indeed, be invariably accompanied by a rise in the price of commodities but in such cases, it will be found that labour and all commodities have not varied in regard to each other, and that the variation has been confined to money.
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It appears to me that one great cause of our difference in opinion on subjects which we often discuss is that you have always in mind the immediate and temporary effects of particular changes, whereas I put these effects quite aside, and fix my whole attention on the long-term effects that will result from them.
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The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages.
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As the revenue of the farmer is realized in raw produce, or in the value of raw produce, he is interested, as well as the landlord, in its high exchangeable value, but a low price of produce may be compensated to him by a great additional quantity.
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Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it.
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The price of corn will naturally rise with the difficulty of producing the last portions of it.
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By far the greatest part of those goods which are the objects of desire, are procured by labour and they may be multiplied, not in one country alone, but in many, almost without any assignable limit, if we are disposed to bestow the labour necessary to obtain them.
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Taxation under every form presents but a choice of evils.
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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.
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But a rise in the wages of labour would not equally affect commodities produced with machinery quickly consumed, and commodities produced with machinery slowly consumed.
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It has therefore been justly observed that however honestly the coin of a country may conform to its standard, money made of gold and silver is still liable to fluctuations in value, not only to accidental, and temporary, but to permanent and natural variations, in the same manner as other commodities.
David Ricardo
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Every transaction in commerce is an independent transaction.
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If a commodity were in no way useful, - in other words, if it could in no way contribute to our gratification, - it would be destitute of exchangeable value, however scarce it might be, or whatever quantity of labour might be necessary to procure it.
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Nothing contributes so much to the prosperity and happiness of a country as high profits.
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Gold, on the contrary, though of little use compared with air or water, will exchange for a great quantity of other goods.
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