My purposes in this chapter are to review selectively the literature bearing directly on the principal issues discussed in the following chapters, and to give an overview of my own interpretation.

In chapter 2, I investigate the evolution of Ricardo's early treatment of value, distribution and accumulation, from the time of his first published writings, when he was embroiled in the ‘bullion controversy’, to the period immediately following his Essay on Profits (1815), when he was obliged to defend his arguments in favour of a liberated corn trade. The contemporary literature on this period of Ricardo's work is dominated by discussion of Piero Sraffa's ‘corn model’ interpretation (as I shall call it), presented by him in the Introduction to the first volume of Ricardo's Collected Works (published in 1951). Previously, there had been relatively little attention paid to Ricardo's early writings, with interest having centred on the later Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (here-after abbreviated to Principles). What had been said, of any significance, may be summarised briefly.

It was generally agreed that, after his initial preoccupation with monetary issues, Ricardo's concern with distribution as a separate topic had arisen in response to new and highly controversial proposals to restrict the importation of cheaper foreign corn. This has remained the popular view ever since. To take Edwin Cannan's version of Ricardo's early argument, ‘restrictions on importation raised the price of food … the price of food regulated the wages of labour, and … cheap labour was necessary for high profits’ (Cannan 1893, p. 164).