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

148 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Crar. IX ling” grows into a “tree.” We may, if we choose, consider the sapling as one category and the tree as another. In this case the “sapling” performs a service at the moment it becomes a “tree,” just as the “tree” performs one later when it, in turn, becomes “lumber”; but no effect on social income is produced, because, if we credit the sapling with the value of the tree, we must debit the tree with the cost of the sapling. Likewise we may arbitrarily designate the moment when a “calf” becomes a “cow,” or when “pew” wine becomes “old,” without disturbing the income accounts of society; for such events are always two-faced and cancel themselves out in the total. We may, in fact, mark any stage whatever in the course of production by an arbitrary line, and regard the passage across this line as a service on the part of the capital on one side of the line and a disservice on the part of the capital on the other side. § 4 The second class of interactions is transportation, or the change in place of wealth. It is a very thin line which separates this class from the preceding class. Transform- ing or producing wealth consists of changing the position of its parts relatively to each other ; transporting wealth is changing the position of that wealth as a whole. But “part” and “whole” are themselves loose and relative terms. Bookbinding is a transformation or production of wealth ; it assembles the paper, leather, thread, and paste into a whole book. Delivering books to a library is trans- portation. Yet the library is, in a sense, a whole; and to assemble books into a classified and organized library is to make a whole out of parts. The distinction between trans- formation and transportation is thus merely one of conven- ience. Many writers prefer to include them both under “production.” We prefer to include them under the less ambiguous and more inclusive rubric “interactions,” and our object here is not to emphasize their difference, but

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