ABSTRACT
As historical context, it is important to note that Ricardo believed that the suspension of redemption had caused a change in the value of the "whole currency." Revisiting Ricardo's monetary Proposals is also timely because it is based on his concerns for the impact of the monetary system on the distribution of income. 'A currency, to be perfect, should be absolutely invariable in value'. Monetary measures can never be considered outside the particular historical and institutional context in which they take place, and Ricardo's proposal cannot be understood outside that context. Ricardo's financial experience would have taken place at period in which European monetary systems were in transition from dual to mono currency systems so that he was faced with the problem of the intertemporal stability of the imaginary unit of account in specie producing variation in its value and in the income redistributions that were the result.
