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22 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Crarp. II
at least, the superfluous which is included will seldom concern
and never embarrass us.
Property rights, then, consist of rights to the uses or
services of wealth. But the services which we own are always
and necessarily future services; the past have perished.
Moreover, since all future events are uncertain, we
are always constrained to reckon with the element of chance.
A strictly complete definition of a property right, therefore,
would read as follows: A property right is the right to the
chance of obtaining some or all of the future services of one
or more articles of wealth.
Property is measurable, just as are wealth and services,
each in its own particular unit. Usually the measurement
is “by number,” that is, by counting the number of rights
of the same kind. Thus, one hundred shares of preferred
stock in a particular company is a statement of the amount
of that particular property. The concepts transfer, exchange,
price, and value apply to property as to wealth and
to services. Indeed, as an exchange of wealth is but a concealed
exchange of services, so an exchange of services is but
a concealed exchange of the right thereto, namely, property.
Hence the exchange of property is the final form
of exchange, and includes in itself all other forms whatsoever.
§ 4
Wealth and property, then, are correlative terms.
Wealth is the concrete thing owned; property is the abstract
right of ownership. The two concepts mutually
imply each other. There can be no wealth without property
rights applying to it, nor property rights without wealth
to which they apply. In fact, the proposition that
property and wealth are coextensive follows necessarily
from the definitions of wealth and property
which we have adopted. But it may readily be objected
that in the actual concrete world, for which these definitions
were designed, the correspondence between what are