Goods are: 1.external a.material i.transferable ii.non-transferable b.personal i.transferable ii.non-transferable 2.internal-personal-non-transferableAnother arrangement is more convenient for some purposes:
Goods are: 1.material-external i.transferable ii.non-transferable 2.personal a.external i.transferable ii.non-transferable b.internal-non-transferable 3.That part of the value of the share in a trading company which is due to the personal reputation and connection of those who conduct its affairs ought properly to come under the next head as external personal goods.But this point is not of much practical importance.
4.It is not implied that the owner of transferable goods, if he transferred them, could always realize the whole money value, which they have for him.A well-fitting coat, for instance, may be worth the price charged for it by an expensive tailor to its owner, because he wants it and cannot get it made for less: but he could not sell it for half that sum.The successful financier who has spent ?0,000 on having a house and grounds made to suit his own special fancy, is from one point of view right in reckoning them in the inventory of his property at their cost price: but, should he fail, they will not form an asset to his creditors of anything like that value.
And in the same way from one point of view we may count the business connection of the solicitor or physician, the merchant or the manufacturer, at the full equivalent of the income he would lose if he were deprived of it; while yet we must recognize that its exchange value, i.e.the value which he could get for it by selling it, is much less than that.
5.Comp.Wealth of Nations, Bk.II, ch.II.
6."The bodies of men are without doubt the most valuable treasure of a country," said Davenant in the seventeenth century;and similar phrases hve been common whenever the trend of political developments has made men anxious that the populations should increase fast.
7.The value of a business may be to some extent due to its having a monopoly, either a complete monopoly, secured perhaps by a patent; or a partial monopoly, owing to its wares being better known than others which are really equally good; and in so far as this is the case the business does not add to the real wealth of the nation.If the monopoly were broken down, the diminution of national wealth due to the disappearance of its value would generally be more than made up, partly by the increased value of rival businesses, and partly by the increased purchasing power of the money representing the Wealth of other members of the community.(It should, however, be added that in some exceptional cases, the price of a commodity may be lowered in consequence of its production being monopolized: but such cases are very rare, and may be neglected for the present.)Again, business connections and trade reputations add to the national wealth, only in so far as they bring purchasers into relation with those producers who will meet their real wants most fully for a given price; or in other words, only in so far as they increase the extent to which the efforts of the community as a whole meet the wants of the community as a whole.Nevertheless when we are estimating national wealth, not directly but indirectly as the aggregate of individual wealth, we must allow for these businesses at their full value, even though this partly consists of a monopoly which is not used for the public benefit.
For the injury they do to rival producers was allowed for in counting up the values of the businesses of those rivals; and the injury done to consumers by raising the price of the produce, which they buy, was allowed for in reckoning the purchasing power of their means, so far as this particular commodity is concerned.
A special case of this is the organization of credit.It increases the efficiency of production in the country, and thus adds to national wealth.And the power of obtaining credit is a valuable asset to any individual trader.If, however, any accident should drive him out of business, the injury to national wealth is something less than the whole value of that asset;because some part at least of the business, which he would have done, will now be done by others with the aid of some part at least of the capital which he would have borrowed.
There are similar difficulties as to how far money is to be reckoned as part of national wealth; but to treat them thoroughly would require us to anticipate a good deal of the theory of money.
8.As Cournot points out (Principes Mathematiques de la Theorie des Richesses, ch.II), we get the same sort of convenience from assuming the existence of a standard of uniform purchasing power by which to measure value, that astronomers do by assuming that there is a "mean sun" which crosses the meridian at uniform intervals, so that the clock can keep pace with it; whereas the actual sun crosses the meridian sometimes before and sometimes after noon as shown by the clock.
