Page:Hull 1900 Petty's Place in the History of Economic Theory.djvu/20

326, those expenses being paid in corn. And the value of this excess, or the money rent, is measured by the amount of silver that a man working a free mine for the same period as the cultivator of the corn land will have left after meeting his expenses with a portion of the silver that he has secured.

Passing over, for the moment, Petty's use of the labor theory of value to explain the equivalence of corn and money rents, let us turn attention to his account of the origin of corn rent. As quoted in the foot-note, it sounds rather imposing and even somewhat Ricardian. But upon examination it is seen to be merely a graphic way of saying that the rent of a farm must be paid out of the excess of its crops over the cost of producing them. That is all the Ricardianism there is in it. If Petty had been, as he was not, the first to make this assertion, his priority would have been due solely to his predecessors' contempt for commonplace. Merely to note that there must be a surplus before rent can be paid, advances the discussion no whit beyond the experience of every man