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20 NATURE OF CAPITAL. AND INCOME [Crar. II

units of wealth affected by those services, as in the case of
so-called piecework. The services of a miner are measured
 by reference to the quantity of coal mined; the services
 of a planter, by the number of acres planted; and of a
spinning machine, by the number of yards spun. Services,
like wealth, are subject to exchange and, in consequence,
have prices. The quantity of any service multiplied by its
price gives its value. When reduced to value in a common
standard, all varieties of services become commensurable
with each other and with wealth.
The opposite of a service is a disservice, which is an undesirable
 change effected (or a desirable change prevented)
by means of wealth. For instance, a locomotive renders
disservices by consuming coal; a farm, by requiring fertilizers
 and labor; a factory, by requiring costs of working.
 Disservices, like services, are measured in quantity
by special units and made commensurable in value by
reduction to a common standard.

§ 3
Having seen what is meant by services of wealth, we next
ask what is meant by the right to those services. “Right”
is a term of jurisprudence, and brings economies into contact
 with the whole subject of legal and custom-sanctioned
relations; but, for our present purpose, it is not necessary
to go far in this direction. The right of a person to the
uses of an article of wealth may be defined as his liberty,
under the sanction of law and society, to enjoy the services
of that article.
Lawyers distinguish between property rights and personal
 rights; but, to the economist, all rights are proprietary.
 The distinction between property and personal
rights exists only so long as we restrict the meaning of
wealth to the narrower of its two definitions, that is, only so
long as we exclude free human beings. Here we have an
instance in which logical convenience is served by adopting