David Ricardo considered that the “natural price” of labour was given by the value of the subsistence goods consumed by workers, without which they could not participate in production processes and thus create wealth. Its level was based on the historical costs of reproduction for workers and their families, which set a minimum threshold below which wages could not fall without inducing a drop in birth rates. In developing this argument, David Ricardo ignored the contribution of domestic work to workers’ and their families’ reproduction process, concentrating instead on the potential conflict between the rate of return and the cost of reproduction of the workforce, as determined by the value of wage goods. He considered that society needed a sphere of social relations that was guided by moral criteria and not by criteria of efficiency.