Ricardo’s gloomy picture of economic stagnation is relevant to a modern debate: how the rise of the financial sector in recent decades and the massive rents it earned from speculative activity have created disincentives for industrial production. Some heterodox economists today argue that growth will fall if finance becomes too big relative to the rest of the economy (industry) because real profits come from the production of new goods and services rather than from simple transfers of money earned from those goods and services.
