David Ricardo (apr 18, 1772 – sep 11, 1823)

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Made a fortune young then retired, took up political economics as a retirement occupation after reading Wealth of Nations.

Ricardo takes Turgot idea of diminishing returns and develops his ideas on rent.

He defines rent as the original and indestructible powers of the soil and that the land itself has original and indestructible characteristics that contribute to the value of agricultural commodities and that the return to land is a return to these powers.

He argues that labor and capital are more flexible and land is fixed and scarce and so rents are always going to increas as a share of with national income.

After his death his theories on rent and comparative advantage laid the theoretical foundation for this political move towards free trade, lower barriers and lower grain prices.

The land owners of Britain dominated parliament and used their power to establish a tariff in 1815 on the import of grain to Britain. It raised the prices of their grain as a result and diminished the value of the wages they paid out.

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