ABSTRACT
It was J.A.Schumpeter’s firm conviction that J.S.Mill was not really a Ricardian economist and must be excluded from that group which constitutes Ricardo’s ‘school’, namely James Mill, McCulloch and De Quincey (Schumpeter 1954:476). ‘From Marshall’s Principles’, he wrote, ‘Ricardianism can be removed without being missed at all. From Mill’s Principles, it could be dropped without being missed very greatly’ (529). This evaluation, although expressed with particular insistence by Schumpeter, is considerably more widespread than is commonly believed, and is characteristic of Marxist interpreters. It is my intention to subject the argument to a detailed analysis. Clearly, much depends upon what is meant by ‘Ricardianism’, and I shall pay particular attention to this matter to avoid a mere terminological debate. I shall try to show that, in fact, Ricardo’s economics, in the strict sense adopted by Schumpeter, was accepted by Mill and indeed was formulated vigorously not only in the Essays on Some Unsettled Questions and the Principles, but also in the celebrated Fortnightly Review article (1869) in which Mill (apparently) abandoned the wages-fund theory.
