130 NATURE OF CAPITAL AND INCOME [Cmar. VII
method is not, of course, restricted to a group of articles
of the same kind, like the fifty houses of the building and
loan association or the stock of stoves of the stove dealer.
It applies to any stock of miscellaneous articles, and even
to the entire stock of wealth of a community or the world.
The net income from any such group is simply the sum of
the net incomes of the various articles of wealth in existence
at all the points of time within the period for which
that income is reckoned.
In like manner may be obtained the income from any
collection of property rights as capital. This application
of income-and-outgo accounts occurs especially in the case
of an individual. For we then find that the sources of
income consist largely, not of capital-wealth, but of capital-property,
— partial rights to wealth, such as bonds,
stocks, and mortgages. But the introduction of the idea
of property as distinct from that of wealth involves no new
difficulties; for we have seen that property is only another
aspect of wealth, and represents simply rights to some of
the services of wealth. Thus in respect to partnership
rights, each partner in the firm of Smith & Jones, farmers,
receives half the income of the farm. The same principle
applies in respect to shares, bonds, or other forms of property.
Business men are accustomed to say that a railway
bond yields or earns so much income. But this merely
means that the railway behind this bond yields income, a
specified share of which belongs to the bondholder. Thus
the true source of the services which flow to the property
holder is the concrete wealth; his property-right merely
specifies such portion of those services as are his. The
income of a stockholder, for instance, consists of all the
benefits he receives from being a stockholder, less all the
sacrifices. Usually, for him, both benefits and sacrifices
accrue in monetary form. His income from his stock is
usually the receipt of dividends.
The total net income of a person is, then, the sum of
