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

170 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Crar. X prenticeship is, as it were, an investment in the body, to be returned at a later time (with interest), just as the plant- ing of a tree is an investment in the tree in order that its fruit may be secured in later years. At the time of tree planting there is no net income, for the work credited the tree planter is debited the tree; it is only when in after years the tree bears fruit or other product that any return is obtained from the planting. Similarly, the work of teaching the apprentice should be credited to the teacher and debited to the apprentice’s body; the final satisfactions will not come until the acquired knowledge becomes effective. All this can be faithfully recorded only in the complete accounting which includes subjective income. The same principles apply to any training or education for a profession. When a young man studies law, medi- cine, journalism, music, or prepares for any other profes- sion, he is investing in his own person, with the hope that the sums thus invested may ultimately be returned to him (with interest). The same is true of physical training. Many of the most successful men are those who, like President Roosevelt, in early life saw the wisdom of developing a strong body, and in consequence have in- creased their productive power in mature years. §5 The second point at which subjective and objective income diverges is found in occupations whose special grati- fication or irksomeness renders their return in psychical in- come widely different from their return in objective income. This is frequent in conditions of labor. Properly speaking, objective income takes no account of the toil of the laborer. The workingman who earns $2 a day earns double the ob- jective income of one who earns $1 a day. Yet if the work of the former is difficult, loathsome, or dangerous, it may well be that many would prefer the nominally smaller in- come rather than endure these disadvantages. These facts

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