114 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Cuar. VII
“We must be careful not to count the same thing twice. If we
have counted a carpet at its full value, we have already counted the
values of the yarn and the labour that were used in making it; and
these must not be counted again. But if the carpet is cleaned by
domestic servants or at steam scouring works, the value of the labour
spent in cleaning it must be counted separately; for otherwise the
results of this labour would be altogether omitted from the inventory
of those newly-produced commodities and conveniences which consti-
tute the real income of the country.’ 1
These reservations are entirely correct: but they fur-
nish no general means of avoiding double counting. For
instance, are fuel and labor to be deducted in the same
way as raw materials? Some writers have gone so far as
to claim that, just as the cost of feeding work animals
must be deducted from the value of the work they do, so
the cost of supporting laborers must be deducted from the
value of their product.? If this view were correct, it would
seem that the laborer could not share at all in the distri-
bution of the social income, since all that comes to him
is deducted!
A similar question as to deductions arises in the oft-
cited case where one profession is more disagreeable or
irksome than another. Should any deduction be made
from the income of the hangman, for instance, to equalize
his net income with the net income of a more desirable
calling ?
When social income is called “net product,” the same
question arises which was met with in the case of individual
income, viz., whether by “product” is meant concrete
wealth, or services, or both. In our own theory, “services”
are taken, but the usual concepts adopt wealth, or both
wealth and services. According to them, part of the in-
come of society consists of new wealth, such as factories,
sihps, and dwellings, while the services of these new creations
! Marshall, Principles of Economics, Vol. I, p. 150.
* B.g. “Report of Committee on a Common Measure of Value in
Direct Taxation,” Report of British Association for Advancement of
Science, 1878, p. 220.
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