Limited strictly to distinguishing Wealth consumed in the process of producing more Wealth--Artificial Objects devoted to further production of Artificial Objects,--the term Capital is a convenient subclassification of some kinds of Wealth. To appreciate that characterization one need but think, for instance, of any sort of productive machinery. Is it not an Artificial Object? Is it not produced by Labor? Is it not produced from and upon Land? Is it not used by Labor upon Land for further production of Artificial Objects? And are not those observations true also of seed gathered and saved for planting? of minerals mined for metal? of metal to be transformed into productive machinery? of food material turned into food at a restaurant? Are they not true of every kind of intermediate product--from Machinery (which, though finished as machinery, is only an intermediate factor in the process of producing Wealth for ultimate consumption), back to the rawest of artificial raw materials and forward through all gradations to the food on a dinner table, the clothing on a diner’s body, the floor under his feet and the roof over his head? One obsession regarding Capital, even when the term is used with Economic accuracy, is that it consists of saved Wealth. There is no such process, in any literal sense, as saving Wealth--Artificial Objects--except for ripening or reproduction purposes. Even for those purposes the saving is in the nature of using, its object being the production of more Wealth rather than preserving this Wealth. Any saving of Wealth in the Economic sense, consists in utilizing it in the Productive Process. Are art objects exceptional? Not such as are relatively reproducible. Only “uniques” are exceptions, if indeed they may be regarded as within the boundaries of Economics. Saved over long periods, hundreds upon hundreds of years in some instances, these would seem to be out of the field of contemporary Economics. What gives them their extraordinary value? The same kind of non-Economic sentiment, on a higher plane, perhaps, that gives extraordinary value to heirlooms. Such products are not Wealth in the Economic sense any more than sacred tombstones are. Though produced by Man from and upon Natural Resources, they cannot be satisfactorily reproduced. They are closer to the nonproducible Natural Resource category than to the reproducible Wealth category. That titles to Wealth may be saved is true enough. But in no extensive sense can Wealth itself be saved. Unless consumed in the production of more Wealth, or in the satisfaction of human desire, Wealth goes to waste.