Object: The nature of capital and income

   
  
  
  
  
  
   
    
  
    
    
   
   
   
  
   
   
  
  
  
112 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Cmar. VII 
reckoning instead of a real payment is to that extent 
inadequate. 
§6 
We have now seen how the fatal inclusion of concrete 
wealth by the side of abstract services as a part of income 
has led economists into two errors, — one the confusion of 
capital with income, and the other the fallacy of double 
counting. We now proceed to consider the other mistake 
in the ordinary concept of real income, namely, that due 
to the needless restriction introduced by the term “enjoy- 
able.” Real income, we were told, consists of “enjoyable 
commodities and services.” We have thus far succeeded 
in eliminating “commodities” from this formula; we now 
proceed to show that we may also eliminate “enjoyable,” 
and leave the very simple formula: Income consists of 
serpices. 
It is quite true that when we put together all the 
elements which go to make up the total income of a com- 
munity or of an individual, and deduct all the negative 
elements, or outgoes, we shall find that there are then left 
solely enjoyable services. But the various elements which 
are thus combined — the income from factories, mines, 
farms, and other instruments or groups of instruments — 
do not all consist of enjoyable services. Most of them 
consist of intermediate services preparatory to enjoyable 
services. How these intermediate services cancel them- 
selves out in the final summation will form the subject 
of a future chapter. At present we are merely concerned 
in pointing out that any adequate concept of income must 
leave room for these intermediate services, 1.e. for the 
income rendered by a factory or a bank as well as that 
yielded by a dwelling or a pleasure yacht. We have already 
had occasion to note the inadequacy of that concept of 
income which restricts it to the yielding of money; we now 
need to observe the inadequacy of that concept which 
  
  
	        
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