The nature of capital and income

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 885228553

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-5127

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Greineder, Friedrich

Title:: Die Wirtschaft der deutschen Gaswerke

Place of publication:: München [u.a.]

Publisher:: R. Oldenbourg

Year of publication:: 1914

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (60 Seiten)

Digitisation:: 2017

Collection:: Economics Books

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Chapter

Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: IV. Der relative Gasverbrauch und die Gasanschlußdichte deutscher Gaswerke

Collection:: Economics Books

Sec. 6] CAPITAL 61 Nicholson," Hicks, and the “Committee [of the British Association for the Advancement of Science] on a Common Measure of Value in Direct Taxation.” ® Professor Mar- shall says that in earlier years he “invariably thought of capital as the whole stock of goods, and of interest as the whole of the usance or benefits derived from the use of that stock”; * that “when one approaches the problem of dis- tribution from the mathematical point of view, there is practically no choice” ® but to do so; and that “wealth in the form of houses or private carriages helped to give em- ployment to labour as much as when in the form of hotels or cabs.” * He expressly concedes what is really the chief contention of the present writer when he says: “I concur in his [my] conclusion that whatever we do with the word capital, we cannot solve problems of capital by classifying wealth.” ” Yet he concludes, “not without doubt, that it is best to” ® base his definition of capital on such a classi- fication, purely out of deference to what he conceives to be the dominant usage. § 6 As to popular and business usage, it may be said that a careful study of this usage as reflected by lexicographers, who have sought from time to time to record it,’ reveals the fact that before the time of Adam Smith capital was not regarded as a part of the stock of wealth, but as synony- mous with that stock.’ Sometimes the inclusion of all ! In his Elements, pp. 42, 43. ? Lectures on Economics, Cincinnati, 1901, pp. 91, 244. ® Report of British Association for Advancement of Science, 1878, Dublin, p. 220. * “Distribution and Exchange,” Economic Journal, 1898, p. 56. S$ Ibid. p. 55. ® Ibid. p. 57. .7 Ibid. p. 50. ® Ibid. p. 56. ® See the writer’s “ Precedents for Defining Capital,” loc. cit., where are presented the results of an examination of seventy-two diction- aries. 1 Originally.the term “capital” was not a noun, but an adjective. “‘Capitalis pars debiti ’ indicated the principal part of a debt, i.e. the “principal ”’ as distinguished from the interest. This virtually repre-

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