Economic essays

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Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Title:: Clark's reformulation of the capital concept / Frank A. Fetter

Collection:: Economics Books

154 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK various related questions of rent, capitalization, etc. He declares repeatedly: “capital is capitalized income,” and makes use almost exclusively of a valuation concept in that sense. Professor J. R. Turner too makes use * consistently of an advanced valuation concept of capital. These views and those of the writer * are in large measure in accord. Ely as early as 1893 * began with a dual capital concept as “every product which is used or held for the purpose of producing or acquiring wealth,” but almost immediately speaks of capital from the individual standpoint as “any economic good” (not merely products) held “for the purpose of gaining wealth.” Later editions, though repeating old definitions, give increasing emphasis to the individual, valuation conception, which finally becomes the only one actually used. “The business world . . . speaks of the total investment—the amount of money ‘tied up’ in a business unit—as its capital. This is the better and more common usage.” * Professor Fred M. Taylor ° speaks approvingly of “one new way of conceiving of capital” as “a fund of value . . . rather than things themselves”; and adds: “Even those who doubt the soundness of this distinction are almost compelled to use it more or less on account of the ambiguities in which current controver- sies have involved the word capital.” Professor Bye ® in his formal definition follows Fisher: “a stock of wealth in existence at a given time,” including land I~ JE == ! Introduction to Economics, 1919. 2 As developed in various places; see, among others, Quarterly Journal Economics, Vol. 15 (1900), pp. 1-45, “Recent Discussion of the Capital Concept”; “The Relations Between Rent and Interest,” paper read at the New Orleans meeting, with discussion, Publications of the American Eco- nomic Association, 3rd series (1904), Vol. 5, pp. 176-240; The Principles vf Economics (1904) ; American Economic Review, Vol. 4 (1914), pp. 68-92; Economic Principles (1915), p. 267: “Capital is a person’s investment power as expressed in terms of money, being a person’s property rights to income, estimated, as to amount, with reference to market conditions.” The definitions given in the references dating 1900 to 1904 followed in part Clark’s and Fisher's leads in conceiving of capital more nearly as the valuation expression merely of (material) wealth. In developing after 1904 2» more adequate capitalization and “interest” theory, the writer returned with clearer convictions to the concention of capital that he had glimpsed before 1900. 2 Qutlines of Economics. ¢ Outlines of Economics, 4th revised edition (1923), p. 206; see also p. 103 et passim. ® Principles (1913), p. 69. 3 R. T. Bve. Principles of Economics, 1924.

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