54 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Cuar. IV
many of them only served to put more combatants in the
field and furnish more matter to the dispute.”* Many
authors express dissatisfaction with their own treatment
of capital, and even recast it in successive editions.”
Adam Smith’s® concept of capital is wealth which
yields “revenue.” He would therefore exclude a dwelling
occupied by the owner. Hermann, on the other hand,
includes dwellings, on the ground that they are durable
goods. But a fruiterer’s stock in trade, which is capital
according to Smith, because used for profit, according to
Hermann does not seem to be capital, because it is perishable.
Kbnies ® calls capital any wealth, whether durable or
not, so long as it is reserved for future use. Walras®
attempts to settle the question of durability or futurity
by counting the uses. Any wealth which serves more than
one use is capital. A can of preserved fruit is therefore
capital to Knies if stored away for the future, but is not
capital to Walras because it will perish by a single use.
To Kleinwiichter,” capital consists only of “tools” of proluction,
such as railways. He excludes food, for instance,
as passive. Jevons,® on the contrary, makes food the most
typical capital of all, and excludes railways, except as representing
the food and sustenance of the laborers who built
them.
While most authors make the distinction between capital
and non-capital depend on the kind of wealth, objectively
considered, Mill ®* makes it depend on the intention in the
mind of the capitalist as to how he shall use his wealth,
! Bohm-Bawerk, Positive Theory of Capital, English translation,
London and New York, 1891, p. 23.
? B.g. Roscher, Marshall, Schiffle.
3 Wealth of Nations, Book II, Chap. I.
4 Staaiswirtschaftliche Untersuchungen, Munich, 1832, p. 59.
$ Das Geld, 2d ed., Berlin, 1885, pp. 69-70.
® Eléments d’ Economie Politique Pure, 4th ed., Lausanne, p. 177.
7 Grundlagen des Socialismus, 1885, p. 184.
8 Theory of Political Economy, 3d ed., 1888, Chap. VII, pp. 222, 242.
¥ Principles of Political Economy, Book I, Chap, IV, § 1.
