The nature of capital and income

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 102659555X

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-82920

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Fisher, Irving http://d-nb.info/gnd/118533541

Title:: The nature of capital and income

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: The Macmillan Company

Year of publication:: 1923

Scope:: XXI, 427 Seiten

Digitisation:: 2019

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Part II. Income

Collection:: Economics Books

114 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Cuar. VII “We must be careful not to count the same thing twice. If we have counted a carpet at its full value, we have already counted the values of the yarn and the labour that were used in making it; and these must not be counted again. But if the carpet is cleaned by domestic servants or at steam scouring works, the value of the labour spent in cleaning it must be counted separately; for otherwise the results of this labour would be altogether omitted from the inventory of those newly-produced commodities and conveniences which consti- tute the real income of the country.’ 1 These reservations are entirely correct: but they fur- nish no general means of avoiding double counting. For instance, are fuel and labor to be deducted in the same way as raw materials? Some writers have gone so far as to claim that, just as the cost of feeding work animals must be deducted from the value of the work they do, so the cost of supporting laborers must be deducted from the value of their product.? If this view were correct, it would seem that the laborer could not share at all in the distri- bution of the social income, since all that comes to him is deducted! A similar question as to deductions arises in the oft- cited case where one profession is more disagreeable or irksome than another. Should any deduction be made from the income of the hangman, for instance, to equalize his net income with the net income of a more desirable calling ? When social income is called “net product,” the same question arises which was met with in the case of individual income, viz., whether by “product” is meant concrete wealth, or services, or both. In our own theory, “services” are taken, but the usual concepts adopt wealth, or both wealth and services. According to them, part of the in- come of society consists of new wealth, such as factories, sihps, and dwellings, while the services of these new creations ! Marshall, Principles of Economics, Vol. I, p. 150. * B.g. “Report of Committee on a Common Measure of Value in Direct Taxation,” Report of British Association for Advancement of Science, 1878, p. 220. 12%

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