The basic facts of economics : $b A common-sense primer for advanced studentsPost, Louis F. (Louis Freeland)
General
The basic facts of economics : $b A common-sense primer for advanced students
Post, Louis F. (Louis Freeland)
Economics
Titles to Wealth, except such as are specific like the title to a
particular house, are titles not to existing Wealth but to future
Wealth. A title to a house, being specific, testifies to property
rights in a particular structure which is in process of consumption.
A title to its site is not a title to Wealth, but to Land, which,
however, may be exchanged for Wealth. Such general titles as Money
obligations declare, are titles to anything upon the market when
demanded, including Wealth that may have been produced years after
the total consumption of everything for which the Money title was
originally exchanged. One’s “savings” in the form of Money or credits
are not Wealth produced but titles to Wealth not yet delivered to him,
and perhaps yet to be produced.
Only in the sense of withholding for use or of using or permitting its
use in further Production of Wealth, is Wealth actually saved; and
such saving is part of the Productive Process. It is a dedication of
that portion of produced Wealth to service in the production of further
Wealth. Wealth so dedicated is Capital.
A familiar example is seed saved for sowing. Also seed sown for
growing. And seed in the barn awaiting the sowing season, that too is
Capital. Seed in the field sprouting and growing and producing grain
for the coming harvest, is likewise Capital. The ripened grain ready
for harvest is Capital in turn, for it, too, is Wealth to be utilized
in the production of more Wealth--bread or seed or both.
And so of mechanisms, which grow not as seeds do but only as the hand
of the mechanic coaxes them into shape. When, for example, a machine
which aids in the flouring of grain is produced, he who owns the
machine owns Capital. He has saved it by putting purchasing power into
a productive implement instead of putting it into ultimate products
for his own consumption. Owning the machine, he owns bread-producing
Capital. Using it, he consumes it in the production of bread.
A coffeemill, for further illustration, is a machine produced by Labor
from and upon Land, which, when Labor uses it for grinding coffee
(another product of Labor from and upon Land) brings the latter product
nearer in serviceability to the ultimate consumer.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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