Transcriber's note:
Corrections in the ERRATA section have been made andduplicate Chapter numbers are marked by asterisksas in the original text.
The produce of the earth—all that is derivedfrom its surface by the united application oflabour, machinery, and capital, is dividedamong three classes of the community;namely, the proprietor of the land, the ownerof the stock or capital necessary for its cultivation,and the labourers by whose industryit is cultivated.
But in different stages of society, the proportionsof the whole produce of the earthwhich will be allotted to each of these classes,under the names of rent, profit, and wages,will be essentially different; depending mainlyon the actual fertility of the soil, on theaccumulation of capital and population, andon the skill, ingenuity, and instruments employedin agriculture.
To determine the laws which regulate thisivdistribution, is the principal problem in PoliticalEconomy: much as the science hasbeen improved by the writings of Turgot,Stuart, Smith, Say, Sismondi, and others,they afford very little satisfactory informationrespecting the natural course of rent, profit,and wages.
In 1815, Mr. Malthus in his "Inquiry intothe Nature and Progress of Rent," and aFellow of University College, Oxford, in his"Essay on the Application of Capital to Land,"presented to the world, nearly at the samemoment, the true doctrine of rent; without aknowledge of which it is impossible to understandthe effect of the progress of wealth onprofits and wages, or to trace satisfactorily theinfluence of taxation on different classes of thecommunity, particularly when the commoditiestaxed are the productions immediately derivedfrom the surface of the earth. Adam Smith,and the other able writers to whom I have alluded,not having viewed correctly the principlesof rent, have, it appears to me, overlookedmany important truths, which can only bediscovered after the subject of rent is thoroughlyunderstood.
vTo supply this deficiency, abilities are requiredof a far superior cast to any possessedby the writer of the following pages; yet afterhaving given to this subject his best consideration—afterthe aid which he has derived fromthe works of the above-mentioned eminent writers—andafter the valuable experience which afew late years, abounding in facts, have yieldedto the present generation—it will not, hetrusts, be deemed presumptuous in him tostate his opinions on the laws of profits andwages, and on the operation of taxes. If theprinciples which he deems correct should befound to be so, it will be for others more ablethan himself to trace them to all their importantconsequences.
The writer, in combating received opinions,has found it necessary to advert more particularlyto those passages in the writings ofAdam Smith from which he sees reason todiffer; but he hopes it will not on that accountbe suspected that he does not, in commonwith all those who acknowledge the importanceof the science of Political Economy,participate in the admiration which the profoundviwork of this celebrated author so justlyexcites.
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