The Kinetic Theory of Economic Crises 51 



indicia of indebtedness are made that stimulate, galvanize into 

 full life and action vast productive enterprises. The leaders make 

 great fortunes, as great, perhaps, as those made by the more 

 direct workers, the captains of the industrial, technical processes; 

 and their fortunes seem to the ignorant to be made out of noth- 

 ing. And so far to us they can only be accounted for as a reward 

 for an original independent stimulus. 



But all this financial stimulus known as "investment" is merely 

 a return circuit — or, if you will, a current induced by the primary 

 current from the earth. The lightning which seems to originate 

 in space and which acts with instantaneous, irresistible power, is 

 really a collection of small individual impulses — the long con- 

 tinued action of the wind, the gradual evaporation of water in 

 infinitely small particles, or the transmission through the air of 

 induced or return currents corresponding to primary currents 

 within the mass of the earth. 



In industry there is a circuit similar to that in natural elec- 

 tricity. The transformation of finished products into still further 

 production must take place through the intervention of consump- 

 tion. The only ultimate consumers are individuals. The process 

 of consumption determines the existence of surpluses. It is the 

 natural necessity of individual consumption that guarantees the 

 individual right of determining surpluses. This economic free- 

 will is the peculiar field of the science of jurisprudence and of 

 the practice of law. Surpluses are hence necessarily atomized in 

 a social division of labor. But the atomizing process of con- 

 sumption is followed in turn by an integrating process of pro- 

 duction. The dialysis of consumption is succeeded by the 

 synthesis of production. The dissipation of matter that takes 

 place in consumption can not, however, be followed by a rein- 

 tegration until stimulating forces or moments are ready to disturb 

 their equilibrium and set them in motion toward each other. 

 With perfect mobility the individual surpluses take the initiative. 

 It matters not in what material forms an individual may have 

 had command over finished goods, or what goods he may have 

 produced, — his surplus emerges, by virtue of the generalizing 

 process of credit, as a right, the peer of that of any of his fellows, 



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