Das Finanzsystem des deutschen Reiches in politischer und wirtschaftlicher Beziehung

The nature of capital and income

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 845394444

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-47716

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Grotewold, Christian http://d-nb.info/gnd/133549372

Title:: Das Finanzsystem des deutschen Reiches in politischer und wirtschaftlicher Beziehung

Place of publication:: Leipzig

Publisher:: Poeschel

Year of publication:: 1906

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (VII, 150 S)

Collection:: Economics Books

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104 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Caar. VII dently only a part of all receipts and money-costs only a part of all costs. In primitive communities, and even in highly organized communities, the income of many persons consists partly in the acquisition of goods other than money. The clergyman receives, besides his salary, the use of a parsonage; and domestic servants receive, besides their wages, their food and lodging. Again, many goods considered as constituting income are not acquired by exchange at all, but produced by the individual himself. It is usually recognized that a farmer’s income includes not only what he gets in money by sale and barter, but what he obtains “in kind,” — the products of his farm consumed by his own family. On the other side of the ledger there are many costs which are not in money form, namely, sacrifices of com- modities and labor in the process of acquisition. The farmer’s crops cost him labor as well as wages. Again, he may not pay money for his seed and fertilizer, but sacrifice for these some of the products of his farm instead. While the acknowledged existence of non-monetary re- ceipts and costs is of itself a sufficient proof of the in- adequacy of the money-income idea, there is the further objection that money-income itself exists, so far as it has any existence, merely for the purpose of purchasing other goods. The laborer’s wages are not his “real wages,” but the means to them. He transforms his money-wages into food, clothing, housing, and other uses. These, and not the money which buys them, constitute his real income. If we acknowledge this, we are led away from money- income to another concept common in economic litera- ture, but still inadequate, namely, “real income.” §3 “Real income” has been defined in various ways, and, like income in general, is often not defined at all. So

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