CLARK'S REFORMULATION OF THE CAPITAL CONCEPT 145
capitalization concept, or made a clear distinction between, on
the one hand, technical production as the source -and origin of
what he called “capital goods,” and, on the other hand, financial
valuation of rights, incomes, claims (to land and also to personal
services, good will, privileges, etc., as well as to “artificial” con-
crete goods) as a source of his “pure capital.”
Nevertheless, his great achievements in this matter were that
he brought out into the open the old ambiguity between “capital
value” and certain concrete things called capital, and that he
presented “capital” as essentially an investment concept; and
that he gave a broader reading to the-idea of rent. These
notions have been apples of discord, and even yet professional
opinions have not attained to unity upon them. It is of interest
to observe the position taken toward the value concept of capital
by some representative economists.
5. The More Conservative Views
Bohm-Bawerk’s conclusions on the capital concept were sur-
prisingly old-fashioned. Beginning with a new conception of the
so-called “interest problem” as that of differences of the value
of goods because of time, he wrecked his attempt at the very first
by his conception of capital (goods) as limited to produced
means of production. For if, as he believed, “capital” and
interest are coextensive facts, he cannot explain with such a
capital concept the manifold time differences that appear every-
where, in land uses, legal rights, financial incomes, human services,
etc. On no other point did Bohm-Bawerk differ with Clark so
categorically as on this; he would have none of the valuation con-
cept of capital." Not even the most conservative of his con-
temporary neo-Ricardians were so uncompromising on this point.
Yet not for a single page does he succeed in avoiding the valu-
ation concept of capital when once he begins to use one. His
capital is always an investment sum, expressed as so many
kronen, pounds sterling, or dollars.
Professor Taussig devoted large space in his text to the dis-
cussion of the capital concept, returning to it again and again,
! See the discussion, Quarterly Journal Economics (1895-1896), Vol. 9
(Clark), p. 238; (Bohm-Bawerk), pp. 113, 235, 380; Vol. 10 (Clark), p. 98,
(Bohm-Bawerk), p. 121.