5. Consumption and accumulation equally promote demand, and are both
of them ineradicable tendencies of our nature, the one adding to our
enjoyments, the other to our power (XIX).
6. Accumulation increases not only production, but consumption
(XXI).
7. It is worth while to establish the truth of a principle, even if
we cannot establish its utility (XXI).
In Letters XXIII to LXVIII, and in LXXVIII to LXXX, the positions are as
follows:--
1. By importing cheap foreign corn the public saves the whole
difference in price (XXIII, XXIV).
2. It must be allowed that the prices of articles, besides varying
with the amount of necessary labour bestowed on them, vary with the
value of their raw material (XXV).
3. Apart from changes in the currency, a rise in the price of corn
and a fall in the corn wages of labour, would be a contradiction
(XXVI).
4. It follows from the principle of Population that the rate, as
distinguished from the amount, of agricultural production, grows not
greater, but less, when the increase of population drives
agriculture to the cultivation of poorer soils (XXVII, XXVIII, cf.
XLIX).
5. This means that the whole cost in corn will be greater in
proportion to the whole produce of corn, and, though the whole cost
in money may be less in proportion to the whole produce in money,
the rate of profits from farming will fall (XXIX).
6. A tax on home corn raises prices twice over, and should be
accompanied by a countervailing duty, not necessary in other cases
(XXIX).
7. In order of time, the increased price of corn comes first, and
the costly cultivation second, but this increase of farmers' profits
may be due to a fall in general profits that is itself caused by the
increased price of corn (XXIX).
8. The progress of wealth has a tendency to lower profits and
increase rent (XXIX).
9. Mere increase in quantity of corn will not prevent increase in
price if the numbers of consumers have increased in equal or greater
proportion. So it will be one day in America (XXX).
10. A rise in the price of corn will not be followed by a rise in
the price of other commodities, but by a fall in profits (XXXI,
XXXIV, XXXV).
11. An addition of rich land to our island would reduce the price of
corn by reducing the cost of raising the total supply of corn; and
it would not raise the value of manufactured goods (XXXII).
12. High prices, whether caused by depreciation of money or by
difficulty of production, are not a public benefit; in the first
case, they are a cause of distress, especially to the working
classes; in the second, they are a sign but not a cause of
prosperity (XXXIII, XXXIV).
13. Facility of production includes skill and appliances as well as
fertility of soil, and in that sense, when suddenly introduced in a
fertile country, it would for some time extinguish rent (XXXVI).
14. There is no real distinction between productiveness of industry
and productiveness of capital; and in the progress of society both
of them will diminish, and rents will increase (XXXVI).
15. Wages do not rise when labour is productive unless the
productiveness of the labour gives rise to a new capital that
demands new labour (XXXVII).
16. There can be no such demand for new labour unless there is a
reduction in the value of food (XXXVII).
17. The only permanent cause of diminished demand for capital is the
increased price of food (XXXVIII).
18. Low prices are not necessarily a discouragement to production
(XXXIX).
19. The need of cultivating less productive soils is the cause of
higher nominal and lower real wages (XLII), and it is the only cause
in constant and permanent operation (XLVIII, cf. LXIX).
20. Profits depend on wages; wages on the supply and demand of
labour, and on the cost of the labourers' necessaries (XLIX).
21. Profits will therefore rise if the last are easily produced,
unless through stationariness of population demand for labour has
increased (L).
22. In two lands with equal capital and equal population, but with
different fertility of soil, profits would differ in favour of the
more fertile (L).
23. The rate of interest is no sure indication of the rate of
profits; and a low rate of interest may co-exist with a low rate of
wages and a high rate of profits (LXIII).
24. Profits cannot be said to depend on 'the proportion which
capital bears to labour,' for, where profits were lowest, most
capital would be needed to produce a given return, and, where
highest, least, in proportion (LI).
25. By a rise in the value of money it is possible (though not
probable) that a reduced cost of labour, materials, and machinery
might be followed by an increase instead of a reduction, in their
money value (LXIII).
26. A dearth may increase profits and wealth by making labour cheap
(LXIII).
27. Free trade in corn may increase the amount of profits more than
a policy of Restriction may increase the amount of Rents (LXVII, cf.
LXX).
28. Rent is always a transfer, and never a creation of wealth (LIII,
LXVIII).
29. There cannot be two rates of profit at the same time in the same
country (LXXVIII), nor under free trade could there be a very
different rate in different countries, the cost of necessaries and
therefore the rate of wages being brought nearly to a level,
allowance being made for differences between one country and another
in regard to the standard of living (LXXIX). It seems impossible
that under free trade a fertile country, unless agriculture were its
sole and only industry, and its capital were small, would long
continue to sell its corn at the high prices of its less favoured
rivals; the prices would fall to cost price (LXXX).
In Letter LXV, and in Letters LXIX to LXXVII, the positions are as
follows:--
1. Natural Price should not be described as depending, like Market
Price, on Supply and Demand, for it can never permanently fall below
or rise above the expenses of production (LXV).
2. A universal over-production is impossible (LXXII, LXXVII), and a
glut of particular articles may be cured by a cessation in the
production of those articles (LXXII); a 'superior genius' might so
lay out our capital even now, that all might be prosperous
(LXXIII).
3. It is not demand, but supply, which regulates value, and supply
is itself determined by comparative cost of production (LXXIII,
LXXIV).
4. If all labour and capital were devoted to production of
necessaries, there might then be an over-supply or general glut, of
them; but in no other case is such a glut possible (LXXIV, LXXVII).
5. Over-production tends to cure itself by destroying profits, and
thereby removing the producer's motive for production. But
production could not go on when this point had been reached, and
therefore the over-production could not last (LXXVI).
6. The remedy would be not the greater consumption of non-producers,
but the payment of lower wages, which means the securing of higher
profits by the producers. When wages are excessive, the labourers
are the unproductive consumers, and the employers who pay them are
thereby causing instead of curing the over-production (LXXVI,
LXXVII).
7. A diminished demand for labour may mean, not the employment of
fewer men, but the payment of lower wages (LXXVII).