CAPITAL-GOODS AS A FACTOR IN PRODUCTION 269 



solidation are three types of solution which have presented themselves. 

 But we still wrestle with the problem. 



This brings us back to our earlier proposition, viz., that the prime 

 source of capital must be found in the surplus productivity of the 

 enterprise. That farmer will succeed and that type of agriculture 

 prosper which effect the greatest economy, in the use of capital, 

 which means the most judicious investment of funds and the most 

 careful conservation of capital-goods. This problem of organization 

 will reappear in chapters vi and vii. 



A. The Significance of Capitalistic Methods 1 



80. THE ECONOMIC CONCEPT OF CAPITAL 

 BY CHARLES GIDE 



Numerous authors have invented stories of the Robinson Crusoe 

 type, with a view to showing us how man originally grappled unaided 

 with the difficulties of existence. But not one of these authors has 

 failed to provide his hero with a few tools or provisions, usually saved 

 from a shipwreck. These writers knew perfectly well that unless 

 they did this the story would have to stop at the second page, for the 

 life of their hero could not have lasted longer. The same state of 

 things prevails in actual everyday society, convincing us of the 

 utility of capital. There is no problem more difficult to solve than 

 how to acquire something when one possesses nothing. Take a com- 

 mon laborer, a man without means. How can he earn his bread? 

 He cannot engage in any productive enterprise, not even that of a 

 poacher, for a poacher needs a gun. He cannot even become a burglar 

 without implements. He would be as wretched, as helpless, and as 

 sure to die of starvation as a Crusoe who had saved nothing from the 

 wreck, were it not for the wage-system that enables him to enter the 

 service of someone provided with capital who is willing under certain 

 conditions to furnish him with the food and the tools that are requisite 

 for production. 



The first pointed stone that was picked up served to help make 

 other new implements under conditions more favorable to production ; 

 and these in turn helped to prepare the way for still more discoveries. 

 The ease of production increases like a geometrical progression and is 

 proportionate to the amount of wealth already produced. 



1 Adapted from Principles of Political Economy, pp. 116-29. (Copyright by 

 D. C. Heath & Co. Used by permission of the publishers.) 



