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:: Part I. Capital

Collection:: Economics Books

Seo. 2] CAPITAL 53 The railways of the country are capital; their services of transportation or the dividends from the sale of that transportation are the income they yield. The distinction between capital and income is somewhat analogous to the distinction between desirability and satvs- factions, which was emphasized in Chapter III; for desira- bility was shown to relate to a point of time and satisfactions to a period of time. § 2 The foregoing definitions of capital and income are not, it is true, universally accepted. Many authors attempt to define capital, not as wealth in a particular as- pect with reference to time, but as a particular kind or species of wealth, or as wealth restricted to a particular purpose; in short, as some specific part of wealth instead of any or all of it. We are obliged, therefore, to pause a moment to consider these opinions. In this chapter we are concerned with the concept of capital only. From the time of Adam Smith it has been asserted by economists, though not usually by business men, that only particular kinds of wealth could be capital, and the burning question has been, What kinds? But the fail- ure to agree on any dividing line between wealth which is and wealth which is not capital, after a century and a half of discussion, certainly suggests the suspicion that no such line exists.! What Senior wrote seven decades ago is true to-day: “Capital has been so variously defined, that it may be doubtful whether it have any generally received meaning.” ? In consequence, ‘almost every year there appears some new attempt to settle the disputed conception, but, unfortunately, no authoritative result has as yet followed these attempts. On the contrary, 1 For a fuller statement than that which follows of the dis- agreements and confusions on this subject, see the writer's “ What is Capital?” Economic Journal, December, 1896. 3 “Political Economy,” Encyclopedia M. etropolitana, Vol. VI, p. 153.

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