ABSTRACT
John Ramsay McCulloch’s review of Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy, and Taxation praised the book wholeheartedly: ‘Mr Ricardo has examined the fundamental principles on which the science of Political Economy rests, and . . . he has done more for its improvement than any other writer, with perhaps the single exception of Dr Smith’ (McCulloch 1818: 60). McCulloch believed that Ricardo had founded a new political economy on the theory of differential rent and the labour theory of value, and that these theories enabled Ricardo to demonstrate the incidence and effects of taxes more precisely than Smith.1
