David Ricardo

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most influential economists from the age of Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus. Ricardo (1772 -1823) reputedly made his fortune at the Battle of Waterloo, and he made his lasting impact with his ideas on free trade. At a time when nations preferred to be self-sufficient, to produce all their own food and manufacture their own goods, and to find markets for export rather than import, Ricardo argued for free trade even with rivals for the benefit of all. He contended that existing economic policy unduly favoured landlords above all others and needed to change, and that nations would be less likely to go to war with their trading partners if they were more reliant on each other. For the last two hundred years, Ricardo’s Theory of Comparative Advantage in support of free trade has been developed and reinterpreted by generations of economists across the political spectrum.

→ Play on BBC Sounds website

Guests

• Matthew Watson 2 episodes
  Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick
• Helen Paul 8 episodes
  Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton
• Richard Whatmore 5 episodes
  Professor of Modern History at the University of St Andrews and Co-Director of the St Andrews Institute of Intellectual History

Reading list

• A History of Economic Thought
  William Barber (Penguin, 2009) Google Books →
• That Noble Science of Politics: A Study in Nineteenth-Century Intellectual History
  Stefan Collini, Donald Winch and John Burrow (Cambridge University Press, 1983) Google Books →
• Great Economic Thinkers: An Introduction from Adam Smith to Amartya Sen
  Jonathan Conlin (ed.) (Reaktion, 2018) Google Books →
• The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times and Ideas of the Great Economic Thinkers
  Robert Heilbroner (Penguin, 2000) Google Books →
• David Ricardo: A Centenary Estimate
  Jacob Harry Hollander (Palala Press, 2015) Google Books →
• Population Malthus: His Life and Times
  Patricia James (Routledge, 2005) Google Books →
• The Elgar Companion to David Ricardo
  Heinz D. Kurz and Neri Salvadori (eds.) (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2015) Google Books →
• Interpreting Ricardo
  Terry Peach (Cambridge University Press, 1993) Google Books →
• A History of Economic Thought
  Eric Roll (Faber, 2002) Google Books →
• The Enthusiasm of David Ricardo
  Ryan Walter ( Modern Intellectual History 15, 2018)
• Historicising Ricardo's Comparative Advantage Theory, Challenging the Normative Foundations of Liberal IPE
  Matthew Watson ( New Political Economy, 22, 2017)
• Riches and Poverty: An Intellectual History of Political Economy in Britain, 1750-1834
  Donald Winch (Cambridge University Press, 1996) Google Books →

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Programme ID: m000tfjk

Episode page: bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000tfjk

Auto-category: 330 (Economics)