The Most Valuable Of All Capital Is

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.

But If Inventions Have Increased Man's Power Over Nature Very Much, Then The Real Value Of Money Is Better Measured For Some Purposes In Labour Than In Commodities.

It Is Common To Distinguish Necessaries, Comforts, And Luxuries; The First Class Including All Things Required To Meet Wants Which Must Be Satisfied, While The Latter Consist Of Things That Meet Wants Of A Less Urgent Character.

Nature's Action Is Complex: And Nothing Is Gained In The Long Run By Pretending That It Is Simple, And Trying To Describe It In A Series Of Elementary Propositions.

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.