ABSTRACT
The national income is equal to profits and wages, and national expenditure to consumption and investment. Competition equalizes the rate of profit earned from the various employments of capital, but it does not equalize the accumulation of wealth from profit with the wages the working class is receiving for its labour. D. Ricardo only raised the problem to elucidate what could happen in principle if improved machinery is suddenly and extensively applied. Machinery and labour are in constant competition, and the former can frequently not be employed until labour rises. Economists like Shanin, Bazarov and Groman argued that because of its low capital/output ratios and farmers' relatively low consumption rate, employment and net savings in the agrarian sector were the largest. Agriculture was more or less neglected and expected to progress through the application of technologically improved equipment, better organization and the fall in the prices of industrial products.
