sells the cloth for that sum, and with the proceeds procures a new stock of wool, machinery, and fuel, equivalent in value to the stock consumed. When one goes with Professor Clark into such an account of the matter, the assertion that capital is not consumed is seen to be another inexact, shining figure of speech, which must not be taken at all literally. Any one taking it literally falls into a fatal error, into which, forsooth, science has already fallen once. I refer to the familiar and at one time widely disseminated doctrine that saving is a social evil and the class of spendthrifts a useful factor in social economy, because what is saved is not spent and so producers cannot find a market.

In justice to Professor Clark be it said that, though he has in his theory, as it were, invited others to make this error, he has not himself fallen into it. But there are, nevertheless, positive errors into which Professor Clark allows himself also to be beguiled by his own figure of speech. Jevons and I have maintained that the peculiar character of capitalistic production lies in this: that a certain space of time, a certain production-period, elapses between the application of labor and the attainment of the finished product. Professor Clark thinks that this is true only of concrete capital goods, and not at all of true capital. Of course, a man must wait a certain time if he wishes to work up a raw hide into a concrete piece of leather, and that on a concrete machine into a concrete pair of shoes ready to be drawn on his feet. Since, however, in that permanent fund which true capital represents there are always on hand shoes in every stage of completion, the laborer can, without any waiting at all, procure forthwith a pair of shoes ready-made which are the virtual product of his own industry. Upon these observations. Professor Clark thinks he can rest the proposition which he declares with great emphasis, over and over again; namely, that true capital-in contrast with concrete

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capital goods has no production-periods, but on the contrary annihilates" production-periods. It has the power to "synchronize all industry and its fruition." Industry and its fruition are simultaneous." "To-day we work, and to-day we eat; and the eating is the effect of working." And, to give his idea the greatest possible sharpness of expression, Professor Clark with strong emphasis designates the ready-made goods obtained on the spot and without any waiting by the laborer as the "true and immediate fruit " of his labor.*

Upon this sentence I pronounce once more my former judgment. It employs a figure of speech wholly wanting in scientific accuracy and misleading. The bit of truth involved in it, as Professor Clark will, surely, willingly grant me, is clearly enough set forth in my theory, and, plainly put, it is as follows: a laborer who in the year 1894 dresses a hide, out of which in the year 1895 a pair of shoes will be made, can in the year 1894 in immediate exchange for his raw product, leather, obtain a pair of shoes ready-made, if and because there was on hand in society in the year 1894 a separate stock of concrete capital goods in more advanced stages of production, out of which to create in the year 1894 a pair of finished shoes. I lay stress particularly upon this, that to make possible the above exchange there must be on hand concrete capital goods of a definite sort. Professor Clark's "permanent fund" may be ever so large; but were it to contain no concrete capital goods that could be worked up into shoes, obviously the currier could not obtain a pair of ready-made shoes at once, but must wait until the shoes made out of his leather are forthcoming. Professor Clark's figure of speech therefore leads away from the truth in two particulars: production-periods are not at all "annihilated," but make themselves on occasions very keenly felt; the fact that one is at once provided with

*Yale Review, November, 1893, p. 312.

commodities whose own production-periods, because begun earlier, are sooner brought to an end than the productionperiods of the unfinished products given in exchange, is the happy consequence of the existence, not of any mystical permanent fund, but of those very concrete capital goods whose periods expire earlier.

Again, a third time Professor Clark's figure of speech leads astray when it is laid down with special stress that the finished commodities, which the laborer obtains in exchange for his own raw, mediate goods, are the "true and immediate fruit" of his labor. The true and immediate fruit of his labor is the leather he has tanned, and nothing else. The finished shoes, made by another laborer out of leather prepared by others still, are the fruit of strange labor and are acquired immediately by the producer of raw materials only in exchange for his own true product. As is well enough seen and felt when either production or distribution is so blocked that the true immediate product becomes unsalable! By the way, I should make no objection whatever, were Professor Clark content with remarking that the products which the laborer obtains through exchange may be looked upon as, in a certain but less literal sense, also the fruit of his labor. Such an observation, for example, would be quite in order, as a refutation of the economically unsound notion that "the laborer eats his master's bread." When, however, Professor Clark sets up his thesis avowedly in confutation of the opinion that the product of the laborer is completed only after the lapse of a certain period; when in this connection he holds the commodities obtained through exchange to be the true and immediate fruit of the laborer's exertions; and when, further, for this way of thinking he claims the monopoly of "scientific" thinking, he places himself, as I believe, in direct opposition to the facts in the matter and to scientific truth.

It is very significant that Professor Clark finds him

self forced to make one concession whereby he really gainsays his whole theory. Accustomed to take a wide survey of facts, he could not overlook a group of facts which very palpably did not come under his rule. In the following note he has in mind this group: "In a dynamic condition of society industries are often started that are wholly new. In these cases some time is required before any goods are ready for consumption, and during this interval owners must wait for their expected products. After the series of goods in various stages of advancement has once been established, the normal action of capital is revealed. Thenceforward there is no waiting."* Here, then, Professor Clark instances an exception to his rule. Let us look at this exception somewhat more closely. Above all, note that the exception has a much broader application than Professor Clark declares it to have. For it applies not only to industries newly set up, but to old industries as well, whenever the quantity of a certain product is to be increased,- for instance, to meet a growing demand. When, for example, the normal production of an article has in the past amounted to 30,000 pieces a year, and that amount is to be raised to 40,000 pieces a year, clearly there are ready at our immediate disposal only 30,000 pieces; and for the additional 10,000 pieces obviously we must wait until the whole production-period of the 10,000 pieces has expired, be that period long or short, as mechanical conditions determine.

How, I ask then, according to his theory, will Professor Clark explain away this exception to his rule? If true capital really is, as Professor Clark avers, a thing different from concrete capital goods, and possesses in contradistinction to these the power to "annihilate " productionperiods, why does it manifest this its peculiar power only in a normal, unprogressive state of affairs, and not also in a dynamic economy? I do not know what Pro

*Yale Review, November, 1893, p. 312.

fessor Clark will say in explanation. To me the matter appears quite clear and simple. Professor Clark's true capital is a mystical conception, manifesting the virtue ascribed to it neither under dynamic nor static conditions. In a static economy the inaccuracy of the Clarkian theory is not palpably exposed for this reason,- that here it is not put to the test. For in a static economy everything runs smoothly because of the harmonious interlocking of the production-periods of the concrete capital goods existing in various stages of completion and by virtue of these very goods, just as everything would go on were Professor Clark's theory really true. In any interval of time the concrete production-periods closed are just as many as the new ones begun. So it comes about that at any one time just so many finished products are turned out as enable each producer to exchange his own raw product immediately for the finished product of another's labor. One may therefore, if he will, with theoretical inaccuracy but practically with impunity, imagine that, through some mystical quality of true capital, production-periods have been quite done away with in the world, so that one harvests as the "true and immediate fruit" of one's own labor a something brought to maturity with magic despatch; exactly as I may with theoretical inaccuracy but practically with impunity, ascribe to a talisman worn about my neck the power to save me from drowning long as I take care not to go in the water. As the power of the talisman is really put to the test first in the water, so is the power of true capital first in a dynamic economy. Here, where concrete capital goods are, as it were, changing their stratification, and production-periods no longer interlock in a perfect circle, it might be demonstrated whether or not true capital has the power ascribed to it, the power to do away with production-periods. Now, Professor Clark, in the example cited above, concedes that his true capital cannot stand this test. Is it,