(5) Finally, that large portion of the productive capital of a country which is employed in paying the wages and salaries of laborers, evidently is not, all of it, strictly and indispensably necessary for production. As much of it as exceeds the actual necessaries of life and health (an excess which in the case of skilled laborers is usually considerable) is not expended in supporting labor, but in remunerating it, and the laborers could wait for this part of their remuneration until the production is completed.
The previous accumulation of commodities requisite for production must inevitably be large enough to cover necessaries, but need not be more, if the laborer is willing to wait for the additional amount of his wages (the amount of his unproductive consumption) until the completion of the industrial operation. In fact, however, the accumulation must be sufficient to pay the laborer all his wages from week to week, by force of custom (wherever there is any considerable division of labor), and also sufficient to purchase tools and materials. The various elements of capital are materials, instruments, and subsistence, giving “instruments” its wide signification which includes money (the tool of exchange), and other necessary appliances of each special kind of production.
In truth, it is only after an abundant capital had already been accumulated that the practice of paying in advance any remuneration of labor beyond a bare subsistence could possibly have arisen: since whatever is so paid is not really applied to production, but to the unproductive consumption of productive laborers, indicating a fund for production sufficiently ample to admit of habitually diverting a part of it to a mere convenience.
It will be observed that I have assumed that the laborers are always subsisted from capitaclass="underline" [105] and this is obviously the fact, though the capital need not necessarily be furnished by a person called a capitalist.
The peasant does not subsist this year on the produce of this year's harvest, but on that of the last. The artisan is not living on the proceeds of the work he has in hand, but on those of work previously executed and disposed of. Each is supported by a small capital of his own, which he periodically replaces from the produce of his labor. The large capitalist is, in like manner, maintained from funds provided in advance.
§ 3. Examination of Cases Illustrative of the Idea of Capital.
That which is virtually capital to the individual is or is not capital to the nation, according as the fund which by the supposition he has not dissipated has or has not been dissipated by somebody else.
Let the reader consider, in the four following suppositions, whether or not the given capital has wholly dropped out of the circle in the diagram, page 67. In (3) and (4) the wealth is entirely dissipated; as it can not longer be in circle A, it can not, of course, be in circle B.
(1.) For example, let property of the value of ten thousand pounds, belonging to A, be lent to B, a farmer or manufacturer, and employed profitably in B's occupation. It is as much capital as if it belonged to B. A is really a farmer or manufacturer, not personally, but in respect of his property. Capital worth ten thousand pounds is employed in production—in maintaining laborers and providing tools and materials—which capital belongs to A, while B takes the trouble of employing it, and receives for his remuneration the difference between the profit which it yields and the interest he pays to A. This is the simplest case.
(2.) Suppose next that A's ten thousand pounds, instead of being lent to B, are lent on mortgage to C, a landed proprietor, by whom they are employed in improving the productive powers of his estate, by fencing, draining, road-making, or permanent manures. This is productive employment. The ten thousand pounds are sunk, but not dissipated. They yield a permanent return; the land now affords an increase of produce, sufficient in a few years, if the outlay has been judicious, to replace the amount, and in time to multiply it manifold. Here, then, is a value of ten thousand pounds, employed in increasing the produce of the country. This constitutes a capital, for which C, if he lets his land, receives the returns in the nominal form of increased rent; and the mortgage entitles A to receive from these returns, in the shape of interest, such annual sum as has been agreed on.
(3.) Suppose, however, that C, the borrowing landlord, is a spendthrift, who burdens his land not to increase his fortune but to squander it, expending the amount in equipages and entertainments. In a year or two it is dissipated, and without return. A is as rich as before; he has no longer his ten thousand pounds, but he has a lien on the land, which he could still sell for that amount. C, however, is ten thousand pounds poorer than formerly; and nobody is richer. It may be said that those are richer who have made profit out of the money while it was being spent. No doubt if C lost it by gaming, or was cheated of it by his servants, that is a mere transfer, not a destruction, and those who have gained the amount may employ it productively. But if C has received the fair value for his expenditure in articles of subsistence or luxury, which he has consumed on himself, or by means of his servants or guests, these articles have ceased to exist, and nothing has been produced to replace them: while if the same sum had been employed in farming or manufacturing, the consumption which would have taken place would have been more than balanced at the end of the year by new products, created by the labor of those who would in that case have been the consumers. By C's prodigality, that which would have been consumed with a return is consumed without return. C's tradesmen may have made a profit during the process; but, if the capital had been expended productively, an equivalent profit would have been made by builders, fencers, tool-makers, and the tradespeople who supply the consumption of the laboring-classes; while, at the expiration of the time (to say nothing of an increase), C would have had the ten thousand pounds or its value replaced to him, which now he has not. There is, therefore, on the general result, a difference, to the disadvantage of the community, of at least ten thousand pounds, being the amount of C's unproductive expenditure. To A, the difference is not material, since his income is secured to him, and while the security is good, and the market rate of interest the same, he can always sell the mortgage at its original value. To A, therefore, the lien of ten thousand pounds on C's estate is virtually a capital of that amount; but is it so in reference to the community? It is not. A had a capital of ten thousand pounds, but this has been extinguished—dissipated and destroyed by C's prodigality. A now receives his income, not from the produce of his capital, but from some other source of income belonging to C, probably from the rent of his land, that is, from payments made to him by farmers out of the produce of their capital.
(4.) Let us now vary the hypothesis still further, and suppose that the money is borrowed, not by a landlord, but by the state. A lends his capital to Government to carry on a war: he buys from the state what are called government securities; that is, obligations on the Government to pay a certain annual income. If the Government employed the money in making a railroad, this might be a productive employment, and A's property would still be used as capital; but since it is employed in war, that is, in the pay of officers and soldiers who produce nothing, and in destroying a quantity of gunpowder and bullets without return, the Government is in the situation of C, the spendthrift landlord, and A's ten thousand pounds are so much national capital which once existed, but exists no longer—virtually thrown into the sea, as wealth or production is concerned; though for other reasons the employment of it may have been justifiable. A's subsequent income is derived, not from the produce of his own capital, but from taxes drawn from the produce of the remaining capital of the community; to whom his capital is not yielding any return, to indemnify them for the payment; it is all lost and gone, and what he now possesses is a claim on the returns to other people's capital and industry.
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General Walker (“Political Economy,” Part II, Chap. iv) adopts the same position, although seemingly inconsistent with his doctrine on the rate of wages. The “rate of wages” is, however, a different thing from the source of a laborer's subsistence. See Book II, Chapter II, § 2.