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
It is, further, to be remarked that pecuniary capital and industrial
capital do not coincide in respect of the concrete things comprised
under each. From this and from the considerations already indicated
above, it follows that the magnitude of pecuniary capital may vary
independently of variations in the magnitude of industrial capital--not
indefinitely, perhaps, but within a range which, in its nature, is
indeterminate. Pecuniary capital is a matter of market values, while
industrial capital is, in the last analysis, a matter of mechanical
efficiency, or rather of mechanical effects not reducible to a common
measure or a collective magnitude. So far as the latter may be spoken of
as a homogenous aggregate--itself a doubtful point at best--the two
categories of capital are disparate magnitudes, which can be mediated
only through a process of valuation conditioned by other circumstances
besides the mechanical efficiency of the material means valued. Market
values being a psychological outcome, it follows that pecuniary capital,
an aggregate of market values, may vary in magnitude with a freedom
which gives the whole an air of caprice,--such as psychological
phenomena, particularly the psychological phenomena of crowds,
frequently present, and such as becomes strikingly noticeable in times
of panic or of speculative inflation. On the other hand, industrial
capital, being a matter of mechanical contrivances and adaptation,
cannot similarly vary through a revision of valuations. If it is taken
as an aggregate, it is a physical magnitude, and as such it does not
alter its complexion or its mechanical efficiency in response to the
greater or less degree of appreciation with which it is viewed. Capital
pecuniarily considered rests on a basis of subjective value; capital
industrially considered rests on material circumstances reducible to
objective terms of mechanical, chemical and physiological effect.
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