12 ECONOMICS 



narrow zone of the future, time-value, being exceptional, seems, even 

 more than place-value, to be a trick, a juggle, a thieving fiction of 

 avarice. 



Capitalization. - - The economic environment has progressively 

 enlarged, and thus has been broadened the zone of time in which 

 a rich and provideut society lives its economic life and makes its 

 economic estimates. Time-value is no longer a minute factor; it 

 rises to a prominent place in the thoughts of men. The use of money 

 and the multiplication of exchange makes the value estimates of men 

 more general, conscious, and accurate. The most noteworthy 

 manner in which time-value is recognized is in the capitalization of 

 a series of incomes. When men provide for the future, they desire 

 to get possession of durable agents yielding a series of future uses. 

 Capitalization of a more or less durable agent is thus based upon 

 usufruct. Capital is but the value expression of a sum of incomes 

 reduced to their present worth by reference to a rate of time-discount. 

 Current conceptions may, from this point of view, be seen to halt con- 

 fused between the subjective conception of capital as the present 

 worth of any durable agent, and the objective conception of it as 

 consisting of certain concrete forms of goods (especially produced 

 goods). The general use of the capital expression of wealth is a 

 novelty, and the prevailing theories are medieval materialism united 

 to modern views, half-man, half-fish, quite untrue to reality. 



Utility and Value. - - We have made only passing use of the terms 

 utility and value, but these conceptions pervade the whole discussion. 

 Recent psychological economics has not entirely freed the terms 

 from difficulties. The use of " marginal utility " as synonymous 

 with " value " of particular units in specific moments and conditions 

 seems near at times to a merely verbal shift. We may query 

 whether the difference is not deeper, " utility" expressing the real 

 benefits, and "value " those felt. 1 Now, as the relation of goods to 

 gratification is recognized to be more or less direct or indirect, so 

 there are different grades, or phases, of value. The theory of marginal 

 units as applied to the exchanges made by groups of buyers and 

 sellers in a given market is but a portion of the whole theory; or 

 rather, the marginal unit theory as usually developed assumes the 

 most difficult parts of the problem, and leaves them unanalyzed and 

 unexplained. The commodities brought to a market are more or less 

 durable, more or less direct gratifiers, more or less immediate or 

 remote, in time, from gratification. Fish and meat exchanged for 

 horses, weapons, or dress are goods of entirely different orders. 

 Immediately consumable goods whose value is the exact reflection 

 of gratification are balanced against durable agents whose usufructs 



1 The doubts expressed above (p. 10) as to the adequacy and consistency of 

 the terminology, apply to these terms also. 



