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
There are income-streams which do not meet the necessary specifications
of capitalisable wealth; and in modern business traffic, particularly,
there are large and secure sources of income that are in this way not
capitalisable and yet yield a legitimate business income. Such are,
indeed, to be rated among the most consequential factors in the current
business situation. Under the guidance of traditions carried over from a
more primitive business situation, it has been usual to speak of
income-streams derived in such a manner as "wages of superintendence,"
or "undertaker's wages," or "entrepreneur's profits," or, latterly, as
"profits" simply and specifically. Such phenomena of this class as are
of consequence in business are commonly accounted for, theoretically,
under this head; and the effort so to account for them is to be taken
as, at least, a laudable endeavor to avoid an undue multiplication of
technical terms and categories.[11] Yet the most striking phenomena of
this class, and the most consequential for modern business and industry,
both in respect of their magnitude and in respect of the pecuniary
dominion and discretion which they represent, cannot well be accounted
undertaker's gains, in the ordinary sense of that term. The great gains
of the great industrial financiers or of the great "interests," _e.g._,
do not answer the description of undertaker's gains, in that they do not
accrue to the captain of industry on the basis of his "managerial
ability" alone, apart from his wealth or out of relation to his wealth;
and yet it is not safe to say that such gains (which are over and above
ordinary returns on his investments) accrue on the ground of the
requisite amount of wealth alone, apart from the exercise of a large
business direction on the part of the owner of such wealth, or on the
part of his agent to whom discretion has been delegated. Administrative,
or strategic, discretion and activity must necessarily be present in the
case: otherwise, the income in question would rightly be rated as income
from capital simply.
The captain of industry, the pecuniary magnate, is normally in receipt
of income in excess of the ordinary rate per cent. on investment; but
apart from his large holdings he is not in a position to get these large
gains. Dissociated from his large holdings, he is not a large captain of
industry; but it is not the size of his holdings alone that determines
what the gains of the pecuniary magnate in modern industry shall be.
Gains of the kind and magnitude that currently come to this class of
business men come only on condition that the owner (or his agent) shall
exercise a similarly large discretion and control in the affairs of the
business community; but the magnitude of the gains, as well as of the
discretion and control exercised, is somewhat definitely conditioned by
the magnitude of the wealth which gives effect to this discretion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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