taxes, either on wages or on raw produce, were taxes on profits. In his formal argument for these conclusions, he does indeed introduce 'qualifications' almost sufficient to satisfy even his recent exponents:
A tax on raw produce and on the necessaries of the labourer, would have another effect, it would raise wages. From the effect of the principle of population on the increase of mankind, wages of the lovest kind never continue much above that rate which nature and habit demand for the support of the labourers. This class is never able to bear any considerable portion of taxation; and consequent]y, if they had to pay 8s. per quarter in addition for wheat, and in some smaller proportion for other necessaries, hey would not be able to subsist on the same wages as before, and to keep up the race of labourers. Wages would inevitably and necessarily rise.[1]
But though he sometimes guards himself in his formal argument, in his subsequent statement he constantly speaks as if the result would certainly follow in the case of the great mass of labourers. Thus:—
Wages invariably rise with the rise in raw produce.[2]
Diminish the cost of subsistence of men, by diminishing the natural price of the food and clothing by which life is sustained, and wages will ultimately fall.[4]
The champions of Ricardo have, of course, one final refuge in the phrase 'nature and habit.' They may observe that the standard of living might be very high, indeed luxurious; but that it might be so endeared to the labourers by custom, that if any encroachment were made upon it by taxation, their rate of multiplication would slacken to such a degree as to throw the burden on the employers. But it is difficult to believe that Ricardo contemplated such a possibility. What he intended to teach the world, James Mill surely knew if any one did. And here is James Mill's version of it:—
If wages are already at the lowest point to which they can be reduced; that is just sufficient to keep up the number of labourers and no more; a state of wages which seems to have been contemplated by Mr. Ricardo throughout his disquisitions on Political Economy, and which the tendency of population to increase faster
