Of the Rate of Interest; And of Its Influence on the Relations of Capital and Labor

Of the Rate of Interest is an economic essay by Henry Charles Carey (1793-1879), the Philadelphia economist who was the leading American protectionist thinker of the nineteenth century. Carey took up the relations between interest rates, the supply of capital, and the wage share at a time when American debate was sharply divided between free-trade orthodoxy from Britain and the home protection school he led. The essay sets out his case that falling interest rates accompany rising capital and rising wages, against the pessimistic Ricardian view that capital and labour have opposing interests. Carey’s wider works, especially the multi-volume Principles of Social Science, were translated across Europe and influenced economic policy in Germany, France, and Russia. The Rate of Interest essay condenses his case into pamphlet form. Free PDF download available on BDeBooks.