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:: Introduction. Fundamental concepts

Collection:: Economics Books

Sec. 3] WEALTH 9 In such cases we say that the article is measured by number. But “number” is by no means peculiar to the last-named case. All measurement implies both an ab- stract number, and a concrete unit, as “ten screws,” “six eggs,” or “four pounds-of-granulated-sugar.” The last example suggests that in order to specify fully the unit of any kind of wealth, it is necessary to enumerate its particular attributes, or enough of them to distinguish it from other sorts of wealth with which it may become con- fused. Thus, it is often necessary to specify what “grade” or “brand” is meant, as “Grade A,” “Eagle Brand,” “Lackawanna” coal. Sometimes the special sort is denoted by a trade mark or hallmark. Tt is in this way that the attributes of particular kinds of wealth enter into the con- sideration of economic science, and not, as some have er- roneously supposed, separately as an “immaterial” sort of wealth. The “fertility” of land is not to be counted as wealth apart from the land itself ; it is the “fertile land” which is wealth. The “skill” of a mechanic is not wealth in addition to the man himself ; it is the “skilled me- chanic” who should be put in the category of wealth. Of course, the number expressing the measure of wealth may be unity, as for instance, “one dwelling.” Sometimes there is only one article of the particular kind in existence. There is but one Battery Park, one Buckingham Palace, one Koh-i-noor diamond, one Rhynd papyrus. Dealers call such articles “uniques.” Strictly speaking, every ar- ticle might be called a unique, even as no two grains of wheat are precisely alike; but for practical purposes we overlook minor differences and regard articles sufficiently similar as homogeneous. § 4 Thus each individual kind of wealth may be measured in its own special unit, — pounds, gallons, yards; but for most purposes it is more important to measure the value of wealth,

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