between land ownership and wealth, it is in the landowners' interest to charge high prices for their goods in order to receive the largest amount of profit possible for the goods they produce. This, however, results in higher costs to the consuming classes and in less income available for other purchases (Masters & Winter-Nelson, 1995, p. 245). In addition, if consumers are spending a larger proportion of their income on foodstuffs relative to other consumers, they are less able to build up the resources necessary to break this cycle. In this way, the poorer classes are likely to remain poor when the landowners are successful at maintaining high prices. During Ricardo's time, it was not unusual for peasants to spend as much as half of their income on grain-based breads.
There were three classes, not two, however, with which Ricardo was concerned: the worker, the tenant farmer, and the landowner. Using the views of Thomas Malthus on which to build his argument, Ricardo held that the nu
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