20 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
use, until a year after B had done so, he would have invested it, and the 
working classes would have enjoyed the use of it once more, receiving 
thereby a further benefit He would then enjoy the services of his 
attendants at the same time that B was wearing his velvet, and not, as 
before, at the time B was manufacturing it.  Mill's error consists in 
thinking that, in this latter case, the actions of A and B are parallel, 
and that both were using contemporaneously their right to the product 
of the labour of others. A definition of the word “invest” would have 
prevented this mistake. 
The capitalists, as a class, have absolute power over future production ; 
whatever they wish to be produced will be produced; but they have no 
power over the past; the stock of wealth in existence is the result of their 
past wishes and actipns, and cannot be altered. If any capitalist resolves 
to ‘‘invest his wealth," he means to give it to the working classes, and to 
continue to give them the result of their labour, keeping for himself only a 
part, which he calls his interest. He will so dispose the labour over which 
he has control, that it shall produce for himself the particular commodities 
which he wishes to use, and for his labourers the particular commodities 
which they will require. It may be more convenient that he shall arrange 
to produce for some other capitalist a different commodity, while the other 
capitalist produces what he requires, and that they shall exchange their 
respective productions. This would have no influence on the total wealth 
produced, which will be the sum of all the different kinds of wealth which 
all the capitalists require. Of course, in a large community there is no 
previous bargain made as to what each capitalist shall produce. They all 
anxiously forecast what their fellows will require, and direct the labour 
under their command accordingly ; the result is, that taking one year with 
another, everyone gets exactly what he wishes. If any particular capitalist, 
after he has influenced the disposition of the year’s labour of the com- 
munity, changes his mind, and wishes to consume, himself, the share of 
wealth which he had previously determined to give to his labourers, he will 
be unable to do so, He may, by outbidding a fellow-capitalist, procure for 
himself what had been manufactured for his colleague, who will thus be 
deprived of it, but the labourers will be uninfluenced. The capitalist who 
was outbid will have on his hands, instead of the particular commodity 
which had been produced to gratify his wishes, a stock of goods suitable for 
the labourers, which he can only turn to account by giving it to them in 
exchange for the product of their future labour. If the first capitalist is not 
prepared to outbid his fellow, he must wait for a year before his new wish 
can be gratified, and in the mean time his labourers will get the benefit of 
