Preface

The produce of the earth is derived by the united application of labour, machinery, and capital.

This is divided among 3 classes of the community:

1. The proprietor of the land
2. The owner of the stock or capital necessary for its cultivation
3. The labourers by whose industry it is cultivated.

The proportions of the whole produce of the earth will be allotted to each of these classes as rent, profit, and wages.

These will be different in different stages of society, depending on:

• the fertility of the soil
• the accumulation of capital and population
• the skill, ingenuity, and instruments employed in agriculture.

The principal problem in Political Economy is to determine the laws which regulate this distribution.

This science has been improved by the writings of Turgot, Stuart, Smith, Say, Sismondi, and others.

But they afford very little satisfactory information respecting the natural course of rent, profit, and wages.

In 1815, the true doctrine of rent was presented to the world by:

• Malthus in his “Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent”
• a Fellow of University College, Oxford, in “Essay on the Application of Capital to Land”

Adam Smith, and the other able writers I have mentioned did not correctly view the principles of rent.

To correct them, I will state my opinions on the laws of profits and wages, and on the operation of taxes.

I combat received opinions. I cite the passages from Adam Smith that I differ in.

M. Say was among the first of continental writers who applied Smith’s principles.

But also he had some mistakes.