David Ricardo：On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Excerpt 104

In the natural advance of society, the wages of labour will have a tendency to fall, as far as they are regulated by supply and demand; for the supply of labourers will continue to increase at the same rate, whilst the demand for them will increase at a slower rate. If, for instance, wages were regulated by a yearly increase of capital, at the rate of 2 per cent., they would fall when it accumulated only at the rate of 1-1/2 per cent. They would fall still lower when it increased only at the rate of 1, or 1/2 per cent., and would continue to do so until the capital became stationary, when wages also would become stationary, and be only sufficient to keep up the numbers of the actual population. I say that, under these circumstances, wages would fall, if they were regulated only by the supply and demand of labourers; but we must not forget, that wages are also regulated by the prices of the commodities on which they are expended.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33310
Locator：Excerpt 104 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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