ABSTRACT
It is widely understood in the literature that David Ricardo was among the first economists to identify and employ the economic principles which lay behind the theory of comparative advantage (Gomes 1987, 141-4; Schumpeter 1954, 607-8). The bulk of this work appears in Chapter 7 of his justly famous treatise, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, which first appeared in 1817. Ricardo lightly revised his successful treatise for the second edition in 1819. However, it was his revisions to the third, 1821 edition, that caused the most controversy. This third edition of the Principles became renowned, perhaps even notorious, for the fact that its author added a chapter, entitled “On Machinery,” as the new thirty-first chapter of the book. This chapter would be recognized for Ricardo’s unanticipated modification of his views on the “question of machinery.” One hundred and thirty years later, in his introduction to The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Piero Sraffa described this new chapter as “The most revolutionary change in edition 3” (Sraffa 1951, lvii).2 Needless to say, Ricardo’s revised view dismayed some of his most ardent supporters such as John Ramsey McCulloch.3
