Mr. Farmer: Yes, and if we keep our noses to the grindstone, our eyes on the sickle we are grinding, and our feet on the ground, we'll make headway right along.
Mr. Laboringman: I think anybody can understand this subject, at least so far anyway. We may get over our heads before we get through, but I know I'm all right yet.
Uncle Sam: The great thing to do in a discussion of this kind is just what you do in any other matter. Talk common sense. Just talk horse sense. Do you know I flatter myself that the common sense of the American people is the wealth of the country?
Mr. Lawyer: Wealth, did you say, Uncle Sam? Why that is just what we are going to talk about. It may be that common sense is the source of most of the wealth of the American people, but really, Uncle Sam, with all due deference to you, I do not think you can call it wealth. Aristotle said: "We call wealth everything whose value is measured by money."
Mr. Banker: That definition of Aristotle has never been improved upon, and today all students, scholars and economists have accepted it as correct. And, while others have talked without limit and written books without number about wealth, no one has improved upon what Aristotle said wealth was. Just keep this simple inquiry in your minds: "Can it be sold for money," and, remember that "whatever can be exchanged for money is wealth."
Let me illustrate just what I mean. If I have land, houses, cattle, horses, cotton, corn, or any other material thing that I can convert into money, they all constitute wealth. Again, if I were a lawyer, a doctor, farmer, bricklayer, engineer, musician, or painter, my services would be wealth because I can sell them or exchange them for money. Again, there is still another kind of wealth that may be described by the single word "rights," such as mortgages, bonds, stocks, bank notes, checks, drafts, bills of exchange, copyrights, patents, good will of a business, etc., all these various things are also wealth because they can be exchanged for money. They can all be bought and sold.
Let us remember this then, that all wealth is one of these three things:
First: Wealth is material, land, etc.
Second: Wealth is labor, work, etc.
Third: Wealth consists of rights, checks, notes, bonds, etc.