All Labour Is Directed Towards Producing Some

All Wealth Consists Of Desirable Things; That Is, Things Which Satisfy Human Wants Directly Or Indirectly: But Not All Desirable Things Are Reckoned As Wealth.

Material Goods Consist Of Useful Material Things, And Of All Rights To Hold, Or Use, Or Derive Benefits From Material Things, Or To Receive Them At A Future Time.

Individual And National Rights To Wealth Rest On The Basis Of Civil And International Law, Or At Least Of Custom That Has The Force Of Law.

Though A Simple Book Can Be Written On Selected Topics, The Central Doctrines Of Economics Are Not Simple And Cannot Be Made So.

I Admit That These Terms And The Diagrams Connected With Them Repel Some Readers, And Fill Others With The Vain Imagination That They Have Mastered Difficult Economics Problems, When Really They Have Done Little More Than Learn The Language In Which Parts Of Those Problems Can Be Expressed, And The Machinery By Which They Can Be Handled. When The Actual Conditions Of Particular Problems Have Not Been Studied, Such Knowledge Is Little Better Than A Derrick For Sinking Oil-wells Erected Where There Are No Oil-bearing Strata.