David Ricardo：On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, Excerpt 244

If money be taxed, or if by any other cause its value be altered, and all commodities remain precisely at the same price as before, the profits of the manufacturer and farmer will also be the same as before, they will continue to be 1000_l._; and as they will each have to pay 100_l._ to Government, they will retain only 900_l._, which will give them a less command over the produce of the land and labour of the country, whether they expend it in productive or unproductive labour. Precisely what they lose, Government will gain. In the first case the contributor to the tax would, for 1000_l._, have as great a quantity of goods as he before had for 910_l._; in the second, he would have only as much as he before had for 900_l._ This proceeds from the difference in the amount of the tax; in the first case it is only an eleventh of his income, in the second it is a tenth; money in the two cases being of a different value.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/33310
Locator：Excerpt 244 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Short excerpt

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