Section XLII.
Of Capital.—The Classes Of Goods Of Which A Nation's Capital Is Made Up.
Capital[269] we call every product laid by for purposes of further production. (§ 220).[270]
Hence, the capital of a nation consists especially of the following classes of goods:
A. Soil-improvements, for instance, drainage and irrigation works, dikes, hedges etc., which are, indeed, sometimes so far part of the land itself that it is difficult to distinguish them from it.[271] To this class belong all permanent plantations.
B. Buildings, which embrace workshops and storehouses as well as dwellings; also artificial roads of all kinds.
C. Tools, machines and utensils of every description;[272] the latter especially for personal service, and for the preservation and transportation of other goods. A machine is distinguished from a tool in that the moving power of the former is not communicated to it immediately by the human body, which only directs it; while the latter serves as a species of equipment, or as a better substitute for some member of man's body.[273] To be of advantage, these three kinds of capital must save more labor or fatigue than it has cost to produce them. Tools are, however, older than machines. The aborigines of Australia used only a lance and a club in hunting; the somewhat more civilized American Indians, the bow and arrow; Europeans use firearms: in all of which a gradual progress is observable. Of the blind forces which communicate motion to machines, water was the first used, then the wind, and last of all, steam.[274]
D. Useful and laboring animals, in so far as they are raised, fed and developed by human care.
E. Materials for transformation (Verwandlungsstoffe): either the principal material which constitutes the essential substance of a new product, the yarn of the weaver for instance, the raw wool, silk or cotton of the spinner; or the secondary material which, indeed, enters into the work, but only for purposes of ornamentation, as gold-leaf, lac, colors etc.
F. Auxiliary substances, which are consumed in production, but do not constitute a visible part of the raw product,[275] as coal in a smithy, powder in the chase or in mining, muriatic acid, in the preparation of gelatin, chlorine in bleaching etc.