The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• Lecture I.
• Lecture II.
• Lecture III.
• Lecture IV.
• Lecture V.
• Lecture VI.
• Lecture VII.
• Lecture VIII.
• Lecture IX.
• Lecture X.
• Lecture XI.
• Appendix.
• Note On Page 32.
• Page 37.
• Page 39.
• Page 57.
• Page 65.
• Page 133.
• Page 145.
• Page 149.
• Page 164.
• Page 175.
• Page 183.
• Page 203.
• Page 223.

Page 223.

Mr. Ricardo frequently asserts that wages and profits together are always of the same value, and that nothing but a rise in one can produce a fall in the other. He uses the term “wages,” sometimes to signify the absolute wages which the labourer receives, and sometimes as the proportional wages. This did not arise from an abuse of words or a confusion of ideas, it was the natural and necessary consequence of a hypothesis, which for simplicity of illustration, he laid down at the commencement of his work. He assumes that any given quantity of gold, or the metal of which money is made, is always produced by the same quantity of labour, with the same quantity of fixed and circulating capital employed at the same interval of time before its its production. On this hypothesis, if gold is raised from mines within the kingdom, absolute money wages will be identical with, and be measured by, proportional wages, and a rise of wages, that is of money wages, will always be accompanied by a fall of profits.

THE END.