Target Exam

CUET

Subject

History

Chapter

Modern India: Colonialism and the Countryside

Question:

Which of the following statement reflect the ideas of the economist David Ricardo?

Options:

A landowner should have a claim only to the 'average rent' that prevailed at a given time.

The state should not tax surplus of the landowner.

If tax is levied, cultivators are likely to turn into rentiers.

Surplus will be productively invested by the cultivators in the improvement of the land.

Correct Answer:

A landowner should have a claim only to the 'average rent' that prevailed at a given time.

Explanation:

The correct answer is Option (1) → A landowner should have a claim only to the 'average rent' that prevailed at a given time.

According to Ricardian ideas, a landowner should have a claim only to the "average rent" that prevailed at a given time. When the land yielded more than this "average rent", the landowner had a surplus that the state needed to tax. If tax was not levied, cultivators were likely to turn into rentiers, and their surplus income was unlikely to be productively invested in the improvement of the land. Many British officials in India thought that the history of Bengal confirmed Ricardo's theory. There the zamindars seemed to have turned into rentiers, leasing out land and living on the rental incomes. It was therefore necessary, the British officials now felt, to have a different system.

So, the correct option is [1].