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Senses of "Capital"

1897; Oxford University Press; Volume: 7; Issue: 26 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/2957240

1742-0350

Irving Fisher,

Political Economy and Marxism

IN a former article' I have endeavoured to show that the incessant attempts to distinguish between capital and " other wealth," are, in reality, -half-conscious efforts to distinguish between a "stock" of wealth and a " flow " of wealth, and that the definition of capital sought for is to be found, not in any classification of wealth whatever, but in the two-fold relation of wealth to time.Capital is a quantity of wealth existing at an instantt of time, and is antithetical to a quantity of wealth acquired, produced, transferred, imported, or otherwise changed from one category to another during aperiod of time.A full view of capital would be afforded by an instantaneous photograph of wealth.This would reveal much that has often been called " income," goods of rapid consumption.It would disclose, not the annual procession of such goods, but the members of that procession that had not yet passed off the stage of existence, however swiftly they might be moving across it.It would show train-loads of meat, eggs and milk in transit, cargoes of fish, spices and sugar, as well as the contents of private pantries, ice-chests and winecellars.Even the supplies on.the table of a man bolting his dinner would find a place in our flashlight picture.So also the clothes in one's wardrobe or on one's back, the tobacco in a smoker's pouch or pipe, the oil in the can or lamp, are capital.This view simplifies the conception of capital, and rids it at once of most of its difficulties and ambiguities.We are no longer called upon to mark off sharp distinctions between goods which are " productive " and "unproductive," " intermediate " and " enjoyable," " durable" and "perishable," for " supporting labourers " and for " unproductive consumption," nor are we constrained to enter inito sophistical disputes as to whether the 1 What is Capital?(EcoNoMIc JOURNAL, December, 1896, pp.509-534).Certain additions which reached the printers after the proof was paged, crowded out the closing paragraphs.In these I had stated that several economists (besides Mr. Cannan, with whom the idea was original) have already adopted the proposed conception of capital.Among them is Professor Hadley (see his Economics, New York, 1896, pp. 5, 273), who had independently applied the distinction between a " stock " and a " flow " to problems other than capital and interest.