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. 11] PROPERTY 39 increased simply by multiplying the titles to it, would be checked, and the usual atrocities of double taxation, for in- stance, of farm and mortgage, or of railways and railway shares, would be avoided. If we bear in mind the distinctions in this and in the previous chapter, we shall see that there is no advantage, but much disadvantage, in including any “immaterial” elements in wealth. ‘Immaterial wealth” is, in fact, one of those bugaboos which have done a great deal to obscure the simplicity of economic relations. Legal advice or medical attendance are not “immaterial wealth”; they are, as we have seen, simply services of wealth (human wealth in this case). The “properties and powers of nature’ are not wealth, but, as explained in the previous chapter, are attributes of land and enter economic science merely as giving characterization to that particular kind of wealth. They cannot be counted as wealth in addition to the land any more properly than can the elasticity of rubber be counted as wealth in addition to the rubber. Likewise, swift horses are wealth, but not their swiftness; honest, wise, successful, and healthy men are wealth, but not their hon- esty, wisdom, skill, or health. Most of the mystery of banking to the ordinary mind consists in the mistaken no- tion that credit is something “inflated,” without a tangible basis. A mere inspection of a bank’s balance sheet should serve to make clear the fact that behind every claim upon the bank is something to make it good. If the anterior something be itself a claim on some other bank or person, there lies behind it, in turn, some basis, and so on until a concrete instrument is finally found. Another common error is the belief that “wealth con- sists of utility.” If this were true, the law of diminishing 1 See Report of Professor Edward W. Bemis and Carl H. Nau, on Value of Ohio Railroads, 1903; also, Report of the Interstate Com- merce Commission on Railways in the United States in 1902, 1903, Part V.

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