The nature of capital and income

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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

CHAPTER III UTILITY §1 WE have seen that all wealth and property imply pro- spective services or “desirable events.” It is the desir- ability of these future expected services which gives meaning to all economic phenomena. It would therefore be im- possible, in any full view of the subject, to confine our- selves strictly to the study of objective wealth, property, and services. In the present chapter we shall consider briefly the subjective or psychical element in economics. Wealth is wealth only because of its services; and serv- ices are services only because of their desirability in the mind of man, and of the satisfactions which man expects them to render. Indeed, the desirability of services is implied in their very definition as “desirable events.” The mind of man supplies the mainspring in the whole eco- nomic machinery. It is in his mind that desires originate, and in his mind that the train of events which he sets going in nature comes to an end in the experience of sub- jective satisfactions. It is only in the interim between the initial desire and the final satisfaction that wealth and its services have place as intermediaries. We are thus led to consider two new concepts, — that of “desirability” and that of “satisfaction.” Both of these enter into our consideration only as they are applied to the three economic elements, — wealth, property, services. To avoid unnecessary repetitions, we may treat these three elements under the one rubric of “goods.” 41

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