ABSTRACT
I am grateful to Mr Eatwell for obliging me to reconsider my article on Ricardo's early position [Chapter1]. Ricardo criticism is notoriously tricky and a review from time to time can be salutary. Upon careful consideration, much of Eatwell's statement turns out to be little more than assertion, apparently based upon a preconceived notion of the nature and content of Ricardian profit theory and of Ricardo's place in the history of economic thought; I am given no reason, by way of a demonstration of the inaccuracy or the inadequacy in other respects of my citations, to believe that I erred in my interpretation. Nevertheless, the exercise has turned out to be a fruitful one. I now believe, and hope to demonstrate in this reply, that my case is stronger than originally formulated, in the light of a body of additional evidence contained in the Ricardo–Malthus correspondence immediately following the publication of the Essay on Profits. 1
