The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical ProblemsFetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
General
The Principles of Economics, with Applications to Practical Problems
Fetter, Frank A. (Frank Albert)
Economics
Further, in the economic world there is much wealth that never can
gratify any want directly; many forms of wealth never can be consumption
goods. It is true that everything called wealth is expected to
contribute sooner or later in some way to the sum of gratifications. It
is for that reason it is called wealth. It is, however, a mere figure of
speech to say indirect want-gratifiers become want-gratifying goods. For
example, the engine transporting a load of coal is indirectly gratifying
wants; if it is transporting a train-load of passengers, the
gratification is direct. A machine making cloth for next year is
gratifying wants only in a metaphorical sense. A field used to produce
food is not a direct want-gratifier until it is transformed into a
residence site, a playground, or a tennis-court.
It is necessary therefore to recognize the distinction between present
and future incomes. The value of the mass of wealth in possession and
yielding income, rests in large part upon its power of contributing to
income in some future period. Thus, any durable good may be looked upon
as embodying a series of incomes ranging from present to future in
varying degrees. This will be fully considered under the subject of
capital.
[Sidenote: Income from wealth and from labor]
6. _Incomes are called funded or unfunded according to the sources from
which they are derived._ Funded income arises from the possession of
wealth or of claims on wealth, such as lands, railroad stocks,
government bonds, etc. The income is "funded" because it corresponds to
an abiding fund of wealth. The income arising from current labor is
unfunded, because there is no permanent fund of accumulated wealth
corresponding to it.
The idea of regularity connected with funded income is not essential to
the idea of income in general, _i.e._, we cannot refuse to call a thing
income because it occurs only this year. If it is part of the sum of
goods that flows in, that is newly available for the man's use, it is
income. But funded income is the more abiding, for income from wages
stops when the man dies or fails to perform his work, while the income
from wealth continues after he ceases to be active. Thus, families with
equal incomes may differ greatly in wealth, the one depending entirely
on salaries, the other on rents.
§ II. INCOME AS A SERIES OF GRATIFICATIONS
[Sidenote: Gratification the test of psychic income]
[Sidenote: All sources of income are productive]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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