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

144 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Crar. IX promising to compensate for them by better service later on. The renailing of loose shingles is certainly not what the house is for, but is only a necessary evil. On the part of the hammer, however, these same events are services. The service called “nailing” is credited to the hammer. Therefore the repairing of the house is at once a service and a disservice. Such double-faced events require a special name. We may christen them interactions between two instruments or groups of instruments. Alternative names are inter- acting services, intermediate, or preparatory services, coupled services, or simply “couples.” They underlie what business men call “double entry bookkeeping.” An interaction, then, is a service of the acting instrument, a disservice of the instrument acted on. There can never arise the slightest doubt as to when it is to be regarded as positive and when negative. The definitions of service and disservice settle this question in each case, by referring it to the desire of a human being, viz. the owner of the service or disservice. As he desires that the house should not oceca- sion repairs, these repairs are disservices of the house: as he desires that the tools should occasion repairs, they are services of those tools. The hammer exists for and derives its value from its prospective services in renailing shingles. The house does not exist for nor derive its value from the renailing of its shingles; on the contrary, the prospect of that event detracts from its value. The example given is typical of the general relations between interacting instruments. The mental picture we should construct is that of two distinet groups of capital. Group A acts on group B for the benefit of the latter. Whatever the nature of this interaction, 4 is credited with it and B debited. The credit and debit are equal and simul- taneous, the only result of the interaction being that, in consequence of it, B is enabled at some later time to yield more income.

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