◆¹ The explanation, however, of this result is to be found in the recognition of an exceedingly simple fact: that the capital of a country is of hardly any value at all, and is, as capital, of no value at all, when regarded merely as an aggregate of material things, and not as material things made living by their connection with life. The land, which is worth fifteen hundred million pounds, depends for its value on the application of human labour to it, and the profitable application of labour depends on skill and intelligence. The value of the houses depends on our means of living in them—depends not on themselves, but on the way in which they are inhabited. What are railways or steamships, regarded as dead matter, or all the machinery belonging to all the manufacturing companies? Nothing. They are no more wealth than a decomposing corpse is a man. They become wealth only when life fills them with movement by a power which, like all vital processes, is one of infinite complexity: when multitudes are massed in this or in that spot, or diffused sparsely over this or that district; when trains move at appropriate seasons, and coal finds its way from the mine to the engine-furnace. The only parts of the capital in existence at any given moment, which deserve the name of capital as mere material things, are the stores of food, fuel, and clothing existing in granaries, shops, and elsewhere; and not only is the value of these proportionately small, but, if not renewed constantly, they would in a few weeks be exhausted.
◆1 And it obviously cannot be used if it is equally distributed.
◆2 Income is all that could conceivably be thus divided.
◆¹ It is plain then that, under the complicated system of production to which the wealth of the modern world is due, an equal division of the capital of a country like our own is not the way to secure an equal division of wealth. ◆² The only thing that could conceivably be divided is income. If, however, it is true that capital is, as we have seen it is, in its very nature living, and ceases to be itself the moment that life goes out of it, still more emphatically must the same thing be said of income, for the sake of producing which capital is alone accumulated. Agitators talk of the national income as if it were a dead tree which a statesman like Mr. Gladstone could cut into chips and distribute. It is not like a dead tree; it is like the living column of a fountain, of which every particle is in constant movement, and of which the substance is never for two minutes the same.
◆1 The national income consists of money no more than the national capital does.
◆2 It consists of other things, or rights to other things;
◆3 Namely, of perishable goods, durable goods, and services.
◆¹ Let us examine the details of this income, and the truth of what has been said will be apparent. The total amount, as we have seen, is estimated at thirteen hundred million pounds; it is not, however, made up of sovereigns, but of things of which sovereigns are nothing more than the measure. ◆² The true income of the nation and the true income of the individual consist alike of things which are actually consumed or enjoyed; or of legal rights to such things which are accumulated for future exercise. Of these last, which, in other words, are savings, and are estimated to amount to a hundred and thirty million pounds annually, we need not speak here, except to deduct them from the total spent. The total is thus reduced to eleven hundred and seventy million pounds—or to things actually consumed or enjoyed, which are valued at that figure. Now what are these things? That is our present question. ◆³ By far the larger part of them comes under the following heads: Food, Clothing, Lodging, Fuel and Lighting, the attendance of Servants, the Defence of the Country and Empire, and the Maintenance of Law and Order. These together represent about eight hundred million pounds. Of the remaining three hundred and seventy million pounds, about a third is represented by the transport of goods and travelling; and not much more than a quarter of the total income, or about two hundred and seventy million pounds, by new furniture, pictures, books, plate, and other miscellaneous articles. The furniture produced annually counts for something like forty million pounds; and the new plate for not more than five hundred thousand pounds.
And now let us examine these things from certain different points of view, and see how in each case they group themselves into different classes.
In the first place, they may be classified thus: into things that are wealth because they are consumed, things that are wealth because they are owned, and things that are wealth because they are used or occupied. Under the first heading come food, clothing, lighting, and fuel; under the second, movable chattels; and under the third, the occupation of houses,[16] the services of domestics, the carrying of letters by the Post Office, transport and travelling, and the defences and administration of the country. In other words, the first class consists of new perishable goods, the second of new durable goods, and the third not of goods at all, but of services and uses. The relative amounts of value of the three will be shown with sufficient accuracy by the following rough estimates.