Ricardo's Representations

Abstract

HAVING AMASSED a considerable fortune in the stock exchange, David Ricardo (1772-1823) retired in 1814 to Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire.' From here he wrote to Malthus, believe that in this sweet place I shall not sigh after the Stock Exchange and its enjoyments.2 His prediction came true, for within a year Ricardo had published a slim tract entitled An Essay on Influence of a Low Price of Corn on Profits of Stock.3 Within two years he brought out his more substantial work, On Principles of Political Economy. 4 These were not the first times Ricardo wrote on economic matters, for he had long been in correspondence with leading figures of the day, and as early as 1809 he penned an anonymous article on The Price of Gold for the Morning Chronicle.5 But Ricardo's renown as an economist undoubtedly dates from the period when he withdrew from active participation in the City of London and devoted himself more intensively to the economic problems of the times. Ricardo usually linked his theoretical constructions to topical issues, such as the price of bullion or taxation policies. In the history of economics perhaps only John Maynard Keynes rivaled Ricardo in the ability to combine an immensely successful financial career with political involvement and contributions to economic thought of the first magnitude. Suitably, it was Keynes who first set Piero Sraffa to the enterprise of editing the corpus of Ricardo's writings. Sraffa's undertaking, which lasted more than forty years and was supplemented by his own important interpretation of Ricardo,6 served to reawaken professional interest in Ricardo's works, especially in the thirty-three page Essay of 1815. Essay was directed to a current issue in England: the Corn Laws. As the Napoleonic War drew to a close, conflict between the landowning and manufacturing classes was beginning to emerge. England was dominated still by landowners; but mechanization had begun, and the iron, coal, and textile industries were growing. In this same period a series of poor harvests and an expanding population were combining to drive upward the price of agricultural goods. In 1815 Parliament debated and passed a bill that put tariffs on the import of corn. Corn, which referred to small grains such as oats, wheat, and barley, was used to make bread; and, though estimates vary, bread probably constituted 40 to 60 per cent of a worker's total expenditures.7 A tariff on corn would make bread even more costly and either lower a worker's real wages or raise the wage cost to employers. Tariffs, then, were opposed by capitalists and laborers; but they were supported