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] PROPERTY 21 the broader definition of wealth, which includes human beings even when free, and by adopting also a coextensively broad definition of property so as to include all rights known to jurisprudence. This being premised, it follows that every right is a property right. No rights have ever been suggested which are not rights to obtain and enjoy the uses of wealth, either persons or things. Even the “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” is simply one’s right to certain uses of his own person. The rights of a husband over his wife and of a wife over her husband, and the reciprocal rights between parents and children, as well as all other rights in personam, are claims against par- ticular persons; while the right to reputation, to the free exercise of one’s calling, to immunity from boycott, perse- cution, etc., are claims upon the community generally. These rights are not ordinarily called property rights, just as persons are not ordinarily called wealth, and for a similar reason, — they do not enter into trade. When wives were bought and sold they were regarded as wealth, and marital rights as property. To-day, both are taken out of commerce and therefore removed from commercial ideas and terms. The economist need not, perhaps, absolutely insist on restoring them ; like the business man, he is chiefly interested in what is salable. But in framing his defini- tions he finds it difficult, if not impossible, to confine the terms “wealth” and “property” to objects which are ex- changeable, without thereby sacrificing simplicity and logi- cal convenience, and excluding certain objects, such as public parks and former English entails, which, though never sold, even business men would call wealth and property respec- tively. We therefore choose in this book to frame our defi- nitions so as to include such elements, even though they be not further referred to. In definitions, it is usually better to include too much rather than too little,and in this case, 1 Cf. T. E. Holland, Jurisprudence, Macmillan, 1898, pp. 50, 80, 87, 00, 128.

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