The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation, and Other EssaysVeblen, Thorstein
Philosophy
The Place of Science in Modern Civilisation, and Other Essays
Veblen, Thorstein
Economics; Science
To return to the main drift of the argument. The pecuniary employments
have to do with wealth in point of ownership, with market values, with
transactions of exchange, purchase and sale, bargaining for the purpose
of pecuniary gain. These employments make up the characteristic
occupations of business men, and the gains of business are derived from
successful endeavors of the pecuniary kind. These business employments
are the characteristic activity (constitute the "function") of what are
in theory called undertakers. The dispositions which undertakers, _qua_
business men, make are pecuniary dispositions--whatever industrial
sequel they may or may not have--and are carried out with a view to
pecuniary gain. The wealth of which they have the discretionary disposal
may or may not be in the form of "production goods"; but in whatever
form the wealth in question is conceived to exist, it is handled by the
undertakers in terms of values and is disposed of by them in the
pecuniary respect. When, as may happen, the undertaker steps down from
the pecuniary plane and directs the mechanical handling and functioning
of "production goods," he becomes for the time a foreman. The
undertaker, if his business venture is of the industrial kind, of course
takes cognizance of the aptness of a given industrial method or process
for his purpose, and he has to choose between different industrial
processes in which to invest his values; but his work as undertaker,
simply, is the investment and shifting of the values under his hand from
the less to the more gainful point of investment. When the investment
takes the form of material means of industry, or industrial plant, the
sequel of a given business transaction is commonly some particular use
of such means; and when such industrial use follows, it commonly takes
place at the hands of other men than the undertaker, although it takes
place within limits imposed by the pecuniary exigencies of which the
undertaker takes cognizance. Wealth turned to account in the way of
investment or business management may or may not, in consequence, be
turned to account, materially, for industrial effect. Wealth, values, so
employed for pecuniary ends is capital in the business sense of the
word.[10] Wealth, material means of industry, physically employed for
industrial ends is capital in the industrial sense. Theory, therefore,
would require that care be taken to distinguish between capital as a
pecuniary category, and capital as an industrial category, if the term
capital is retained to cover the two concepts.[11] The distinction here
made substantially coincides with a distinction which many late writers
have arrived at from a different point of approach and have, with
varying success, made use of under different terms.[12]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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