CaRRUTHERS.—On some of the Terms used in Political Economy. 9 
Productive Labour and Capital. 
The words productive and unproductive play a great role in the works 
of political economists. Nominally, they mean productive or unproductive 
of wealth—that is, of things useful or agreeable which possess exchangeable 
value—but when closely examined they will often be found to refer, not to 
wealth, but to a right to a share of the wealth produced by others; or, in 
other words, labour is sometimes said to be productively employed when it 
produces wealth, and sometimes when it only produces profits to the 
employer of labour. To distinguish between these two meanings I propose 
to use the words “ productive" and “profitable,” to mark the production of 
wealth and of profits respectively ; and, unless otherwise stated, I shall use 
“ capital” to denote, not wealth itself, but a right to a certain share of 
the wealth of the community. 
A productive labourer is said (Book I., chap. iü., sec. 4) to be one “who 
produees more than he consumes." Let us take for example a navvy, who 
excavates ten cubic yards of earth and consumes in the same time a certain 
quantity of beef and beer. Has he produced more or less than he has con- 
sumed? Is he to be classed as a productive or an unproductive labourer ? 
and if, instead of ten yards, he had only excavated one yard, would it have 
any influence on the classification? A shoemaker, again, makes a dozen 
pairs of shoes, and, while doing so, consumes a certain quantity of food and 
other things. He has produced the shoes, and must, therefore, be a pro- 
ductive labourer; but it is impossible to compare them with the things he 
has eonsumed, so as to say that his consumption has been greater or less 
than his production. There is no difficulty in finding out whether he is a 
* profitable" labourer or not. If he consumes less commodities than his 
employer can get in exchange for the shoes he makes, he is profitably, and, 
if more, then he is unprofitably employed. 
Mill’s illustration (Book I., chap. iii., sec. 4) of the results of productive 
and unproductive labour shows clearly that he really means profitable and 
unprofitable. He says:—“ When a tailor makes a coat and sells it, there 
is a transfer of the price from the customer to the tailor, and a coat besides 
which did not previously exist; but what is gained by an actor is a mere 
transfer from the spectator's funds to his, leaving no article of wealth for 
the spectator's indemnification. Thus the community collectively gains 
nothing by the actor's labour." 
Here the price of the coat is not wealth, nor anything which benefits the 
community or any member of it. The customer acquires the coat, giving 
to the tailor a piece of metal, useless of itself, but which gives him a right 
to a certain share of other people's wealth. This right he exercises, 
