ABSTRACT
Lewis suggested that unlimited supplies of labour kept wages down and allowed capitalists large profit margins, thus providing the finance for the increase in capital assets. There is not much evidence for this in the first half of the mid-eighteenth century: population was growing slowly, real wages were increasing, and finance came from agriculturalists and middle-class savers as well as large capitalists. However, in the mid-eighteenth century the investment ratio was around 6–7 per cent, while by 1840 it was much higher. So it remains quite possible that, over the intervening period, a Lewislike effect on the supply price of labour was a vital component in Britain’s ability to reach this rate of capital accumulation.
