Section XLIII.. Capital.—Productive Capital.

Capital.—Productive Capital.

Capital, according to the employment that can be given it, may be divided into such as affects the production of material goods, and such as affects personal goods or useful relations. The former, under the name of productive capital, is, in recent politico-economical literature, usually opposed to capital in use.(279) Evidently any one of the two kinds of capital mentioned above, may be used for both purposes.(280) Indeed, the two classes are, in many respects, coincident. Thus, a livery-stable carriage or a circulating library is productive capital to its proprietor, and capital in use(281) (Gebrauchskapital) to the nation in general; although the circulating library from which an Arkwright obtains technic information, or the livery-stable vehicle which carries a Borsig to his counting-room, has certainly been used in the production of material goods. Almost all capital in use may be converted into productive capital, and hence, the former might be called quiescent capital, and the latter working capital.(282) One of the principal differences between productive capital and capital in use is, that the former, even when most judiciously employed, does not so immediately replace itself, as the latter, by its returns.(283) On the other hand, the real dividing line between capital in use, and objects consumed which are not capital, is, and it is in complete harmony with our definition of capital, that the latter are subject not only to a more speedy destruction and one which is always contemplated, while in the case of the former, its destruction is only the unintended reverse-side of its use.

Among a highly civilized people, a great amount of capital in use, as compared with the productive capital of the country, may be considered a sure sign of great wealth. When this is the case, the people, without losing the desire of further acquisition, think that they have enough to richly enjoy the present. I need only call to mind the munificence displayed by the middle classes in England, in their silver plate and other domestic utensils. But the people of Russia, and Mexico also, can make no mean display of silverware.(284) Here luxury is only a symptom of the disinclination or inability of the inhabitants of the country to use their capital in the production of wealth. How much richer would Spain be to-day, if it had employed the idle capital spent in the ornamentation of its churches in constructing roads and canals!(285) Most nations in a low state of civilization suffer from the absence of legal guarantees. Each one is compelled to turn his property into a shape in which it can be most easily transferred from one place to another and hidden. This is the principal reason why the Orientals possess, relatively speaking, so many precious stones and so much of the precious metals. The same cause accounts for the simplicity of their dwellings.(286) On the other hand, productive capital is to be found in the greatest proportion among civilized nations which are making very rapid strides towards wealth, the people of the United States, for instance.