The nature of capital and income

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1794855874

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-179223

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Polner, Tichon I. http://d-nb.info/gnd/172311195

Title:: Russian local government during the war and the Union of Zemstvos

Place of publication:: New Haven

Publisher:: Yale Univ. Press

Year of publication:: 1930

Scope:: XXV, 317 S.

Digitisation:: 2022

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Chapter I. Origin and organization of zemstvo institutions

Collection:: Economics Books

PROPERTY § 2 We need first to understand what is the nature of the uses or services of wealth. The services of an instrument of wealth are the desirable changes effected (or the undesir- able changes prevented) by means of that instrument. For instance, the services of a loom consist in changing yarn into cloth, or what is called weaving. Similarly, a plow per- forms the service of changing the soil in a particular manner; a bricklayer, of changing the position of bricks. A dam or dike performs the service of preventing the water from overflowing the land; a fence, of preventing cattle from roaming; a necklace, of sparkling or reflecting light, and thereby satisfying the love of beauty or the vanity of the owner. When services are described as desirable events, it is meant that they are desired or esteemed by the owner or owners, not necessarily by every one, or even any one, else. It may even happen that the events are distinctly distaste- ful to others. A factory whistle may be a nuisance to every one except the factory owner. In this connection it is important to distinguish between the uses or desirable events, and the utility or desirability of those events. The desirable service is a thing; it is usually objective. The desirability of the service, on the other hand, is a quality, and is purely subjective. It is a feeling toward the events, not the events themselves. In the present chapter we do not have to deal with the de- sirability, and it will form the subject of the next chapter. Each-sort of service is measured in its own appropriate unit. Sometimes the measurement is by number, i.e. obtained by simply counting the acts in which the specified service consists, as, for instance, in the case of the strokes of a printing press; sometimes the measurement is by time, as in the case of the day laborer; while sometimes the measurement of the services is expressed in terms of the

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