Principles of Political Economy and Taxation |
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Common terms and phrases
abundance accumulation Adam Smith additional advantage agriculture alteration amount bounty Buchanan capital employed cause cent circulating capital circulation circumstances cloth consequence consumer cost of production cultivation currency demand for labour diminished diminution dities duce duction effect employment England equal exchangeable value expenses exportation fall farmer fertility fixed capital foreign trade fund gold greater quantity high price importance improvements income increase interest labour necessary landlord less lower machinery Malthus manufacturer market price ment millions modities money price natural price obtain paid Physiocratic population portion Portugal price of commodities price of corn price of labour price of raw principle profits of stock proportion purchase quantity of labour quarters raise the price rate of profits raw produce regulated relative value revenue Ricardo riches rise of wages says seignorage sell silver supply suppose taxation theory things tion value of money variations wages of labour wealth whole wine
Popular passages
Page 279 - What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage.
Page 70 - 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, one with another, to subsist and to perpetuate their race, without either increase or diminution.
Page 77 - The friends of humanity cannot but wish that in all countries the labouring classes should have a taste for comforts and enjoyments, and that they should be stimulated by all legal means in their exertions to procure them. There cannot be a better security against a superabundant population.
Page 162 - The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to every other person.
Page 101 - The farmer and manufacturer can no more live without profit than the labourer without wages. Their motive for accumulation will diminish with every diminution of profit, and will cease altogether when their profits are so low as not to afford them an adequate compensation for their trouble, and the risk which they must necessarily encounter in employing their capital productively.
Page 52 - Corn is not high because a rent is paid, but a rent is paid because corn is high; and it has been justly observed that no reduction would take place in the price of corn, although landlords should forego the whole of their rent.
Page 117 - Gold and silver having been chosen for the general medium of circulation, they are, by the competition of commerce, distributed in such proportions amongst the different countries of the world, as to accommodate themselves to the natural traffic which would take place if no such metals existed, and the trade between countries were purely a trade of barter.
Page 114 - ... binds together by one common tie of interest and intercourse, the universal society of nations throughout the civilized world.
Page 47 - When, in the progress of society, land of the second degree of fertility is taken into cultivation, rent immediately commences on that of the first quality, and the amount of that rent will depend on the difference in the quality of these two portions of land. "When land of the third quality is taken into cultivation, rent immediately commences on the second, and it is regulated as before, by the difference in their productive powers. At the same time, the rent of the first quality will rise...
Page 313 - But land, in almost any situation» produces a greater quantity of food than what is sufficient to maintain all the labour necessary for bringing it to market, in the most liberal way in which that labour is ever maintained. The surplus, too, is always more than sufficient to replace the stock which employed that labour, together with its profits. Something, therefore, always remains for a rent to the landlord.