ABSTRACT

Ricardo, unlike James Mill, is important through his doctrine alone, not through his personality. He was, by all accounts, a lovable man; John Stuart Mill alludes to him repeatedly as “my father’s dearest friend,” and says that “by his benevolent countenance, and kindliness of manner, [he] was very attractive to young persons.” He entered Parliament in 1818, and was listened to with respect, but his influence was as a writer. His chief work was The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, published in 1817. This book became, in a sense, the canon of economic orthodoxy; at the same time, it was found that the devil could quote scripture: both Socialists and Single-Taxers derived their proposals from his doctrines. The Socialists appealed to his theory of value, the Single-Taxers to his theory of rent. More generally, by discussing the distribution of wealth among the different classes of society, he incidentally made it clear that different classes may have divergent interests. There is much in Marx that is derived from Ricardo. He has thus a two-fold importance: as the source of official economics, and also as the unintentional parent of heresy.