Summary and Conclusion

Abstract

D.P. O’Brien (1975, p. 265) has observed that ‘For some reason texts in the history of economic thought usually omit discussions of the public finance writings of the Classicists.’ In reading the work of various scholars of Classical economics, I soon made the same observation as did O’Brien, and I was led to question why this was so. More detailed study of the literature provided no answers as to why the writings of the Classical economists on public finance received relatively little attention, for the questions of taxation, public debt, and the economic role of government were of great concern to them from both theoretical and policy perspectives. In writing this study, it has been my hope to help to redress this surprising omission, with a specific focus on David Ricardo and the public debt issue. Examination of Ricardo’s work on public debt sheds light on a series of interesting questions, relating to his analyses of resource allocation and economic growth, his methodological procedure, his involvement in theoretical and policy debates with his contemporaries, his purposes in participating in those debates, and his contribution to the development of public debt theory.

Every now and then a man’s mind is stretched by a new idea and never shrinks back to its original proportion.Oliver Wendell Holmes