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

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Introduction. Fundamental concepts

Collection:: Economics Books

gs ee 22 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Crarp. II at least, the superfluous which is included will seldom con- cern and never embarrass us. Property rights, then, consist of rights to the uses or services of wealth. But the services which we own are al- ways and necessarily future services; the past have per- ished. Moreover, since all future events are uncertain, we are always constrained to reckon with the element of chance. A strictly complete definition of a property right, therefore, would read as follows: A property right is the right to the chance of obtaining some or all of the future services of one or more articles of wealth. Property is measurable, just as are wealth and services, each in its own particular unit. Usually the measurement is “by number,” that is, by counting the number of rights of the same kind. Thus, one hundred shares of preferred stock in a particular company is a statement of the amount of that particular property. The concepts transfer, ex- change, price, and value apply to property as to wealth and to services. Indeed, as an exchange of wealth is but a con- cealed exchange of services, so an exchange of services is but a concealed exchange of the right thereto, namely, prop- erty. Hence the exchange of property is the final form of exchange, and includes in itself all other forms whatso- ever. § 4 Wealth and property, then, are correlative terms. Wealth is the concrete thing owned; property is the ab- stract right of ownership. The two concepts mutually imply each other. There can be no wealth without prop- erty rights applying to it, nor property rights without wealth to which they apply. In fact, the proposition that property and wealth are coextensive follows neces- sarily from the definitions of wealth and property which we have adopted. But it may readily be objected that in the actual concrete world, for which these defini- tions were designed, the correspondence between what are

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