| Sumario: | This article presents an interpretation of a Ricardian notion of demand. A demand relation is an integral element of Ricardo's value theory, or of a comprehensive Ricardian model, is, on the whole, alien to Ricardo's approach, though he explicitly refers to demand on some occasions. In an article published in 1952 Stigler suggested that Ricardo customarily assumed zero elasticity of demand for food. This is in essence also the message of his Note where the zero elasticity demand curve is identified as the one which fundamentally represents Ricardo's view on demand. The interpretation of Ricardo's position on demand is untenable if it were true that a conventional demand relation and the law of the falling profit rate are incompatible, or that the latter is weakened when the former applies. Meanwhile, the rate at which the price would rise in response to a change in demand is not relevant in the present context. The fact that the negatively sloped demand curve, just as its zero elastic alternative, generates a rise in the price of food is all that matters here. In addition, Ricardo did assume zero elasticity to establish his result on rent, he did not in fact need this extreme assumption. A less restrictive model with a conventional demand curve would have sufficed.
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