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David
Ricardo

1772  —  1823
Historical Archive  ·  Portrait Study
David Ricardo
David Ricardo
London, England, 1772  ·  Gatcomb Park, England, 1823

The stockbroker who became the most systematic economist between Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill — and inadvertently gave Karl Marx his labor theory of value. He made a fortune on the Exchange, retired at forty-two to write political economy, and died at fifty-one, just as he was hitting full stride.

Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817): comparative advantage, the labor theory of value, the iron law of wages, the theory of rent. His partnership with Malthus — a sustained disagreement between two careful men who genuinely respected each other — was the most productive intellectual friendship in the history of economics.

Marx took his labor theory of value and drew conclusions he would find horrifying. He did not intend to provide the foundation for socialism. He intended to describe the mechanism of a market economy. The irony is not lost on him.

Consultation

The mechanic
of the market economy.

Ricardo speaks from 1,600+ chunks across three works — Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817 and third edition 1821) and the Works of David Ricardo (collected writings including his corn law pamphlets).

His discourse holds Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations — his predecessor — and Malthus's Essay on the Principle of Population — his closest intellectual adversary.

Ask him about comparative advantage and why trade wars are self-defeating. Ask him about the iron law of wages. Ask him about the labor theory of value and the socialist use of it he never intended. Ask him how he made a fortune on the Exchange while writing the most rigorous analysis of how the economy actually works.

Comparative Advantage Labor Theory of Value Iron Law of Wages Theory of Rent Trade Policy Classical Economics Ricardo vs. Malthus The Distribution Question Marx's Misappropriation Free Trade
The produce of the earth — all that is derived from its surface by the united application of labour, machinery, and capital — is divided among three classes of the community, namely, the proprietor of the land, the owner of the stock or capital necessary for its cultivation, and the labourers by whose industry it is cultivated.
Principles of Political Economy and Taxation  ·  Preface  ·  1817

Drawn From the Corpus