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

Ske. 6] PROPERTY 29 to pay the annual sum of $8 to the —— Publishing Com- pany, provided that and so long as its newspaper is received and is satisfactory.” Thus good will is merely the right to a tacit, loose, and contingent promise of support and pat- ronage, less cost. The firm possessing good will owns a precarious yet valuable claim upon its patrons, namely, the chance of their continued patronage. The persons of these subscribers, and their other wealth, are what under- lie the property right, because they are the means to the desired services to which those rights apply. Of course the chance of obtaining these services is very much less than it would be if the services were specifically promised; but chance, either large or small, is involved in all property rights. In the same way, the “custom” of a tailor or the “prac- tice” of a physician is simply the right to the chance of future patronage. A franchise in the sense of a monopoly privilege granted by a government is quite different from a street railway franchise. The object of the monopoly is to prevent cer- tain acts of certain persons. The means to that end are, in the last analysis, the persons who are constrained to refrain, and the wealth withdrawn from competition. We may similarly regard a copyright. Recalling the case of the paper trust, part of whose property was the prom- ise of a paper manufacturer not to compete, we may regard a copyright as the right to a similar refraining from or re- straining of competition. At one time, an English pub- lisher would obtain the promise of an American publisher not to “pirate” his works. It would have been property of great value to the publishers of the Encyclopedia Bri- tannica if they could have prevented the pirating of their work in this country. Prevention can now be accomplished through the instrumentality of international copyright. The wealth underlying this property right is the wealth which, if employed in the specified line, would enter into

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