Quote

Taxation under every form presents but a choice of evils.

David Ricardo

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

David Ricardo
Age: 50 †
Born: 1772
Born: April 19
Died: 1823
Died: January 1
Economist
Philosopher
Politician
Stockbroker
London
England
Every
Taxation
Presents
Evils
Choice
Choices
Evil
Form

More quotes by David Ricardo

Image
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
Image
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.
David Ricardo
Image
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.
David Ricardo
Image
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
Image
The wheat bought by a farmer to sow is comparatively a fixed capital to the wheat purchased by a baker to make into loaves.
David Ricardo
Image
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.
David Ricardo
Image
The factors left out of the Ricardian equation are falling wages and idle capacity.
David Ricardo
Image
Again two manufacturers may employ the same amount of fixed, and the same amount of circulating capital but the durability of their fixed capitals may be very unequal.
David Ricardo
Image
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.
David Ricardo
Image
Utility then is not the measure of exchangeable value, although it is absolutely essential to it.
David Ricardo
Image
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.
David Ricardo
Image
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.
David Ricardo
Image
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.
David Ricardo
Image
Gold, on the contrary, though of little use compared with air or water, will exchange for a great quantity of other goods.
David Ricardo
Image
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
Image
Whenever, then, the usual and ordinary rate of the profits of agricultural stock, and all the outgoings belonging to the cultivation of land, are together equal to the value of the whole produce, there can be no rent.
David Ricardo
Image
To alter the money value of commodities, by altering the value of money, and yet to raise the same money amount by taxes, is then undoubtedly to increase the burthens of society.
David Ricardo
Image
If I discover a manure which will enable me to make a piece of land produce 20 per cent more corn, I may withdraw at least a portion of my capital from the most unproductive part of my farm.
David Ricardo
Image
Profits are not made by differential cleverness, but by differential stupidity.
David Ricardo
Image
The price of corn will naturally rise with the difficulty of producing the last portions of it.
David Ricardo