99 Transactions.—Miscellaneous. 
nor to exchange for others which he will consume. He intends that the 
work produced shall be consumed by the workmen themselves, and it 
must therefore be of such description as workmen generally use. The 
wealth so given to the labourers may be called the ** invested fund.” 
He ** invests his wealth in implements" when he induces labourers to make 
them. It is absolutely necessary that implements shall be made, and it 
would therefore be absurd to say that it is any special hardship for the 
workmen to be obliged to produce them; but there is a good deal of analogy 
between wealth expended, and wealth invested in implements. In both 
cases the capitalist becomes the owner of the product of the labour, and 
the workman does not, as in the case of invested wealth, get any direct 
benefit from it. 
He exchanges his wealth when he gives a commodity, or a valid certificate 
of a right to a share of the common wealth, such as eash, mortgage, book 
debt, or bank credit, in exchange for another. This form of transaction is 
generally looked upon as most important, but to the community at large 
it matters very little whether A owns a ship and B a farm, or B the ship 
and A the farm. 
Mill (Book I., chap. v., sec. 9) speaks of a capitalist ‘‘ expending his 
income in buying velvet or lace,” as if this were the same as expending his 
income in producing it. The confusion between the two expressions has 
grievously misled him. The mere exchange of gold for velvet is of not the 
slightest importance to the community. A owned gold and B velvet; they 
make an exchange, and B then owns gold and A velvet. No one is in the 
least influenced except themselves. If A produces gold, or B velvet, for his 
own use, he applies the labour of the community to his personal advantage ; 
if he is a mere agent, and C or D is the real user, then C or D gets the 
benefit, and expends his wealth in producing the velvet. 
The foregoing examination shows that Mill does not use the word 
capital in any one fixed sense, but glides almost imperceptibly from one 
meaning to another. It is not, when used with any meaning he gives to it, 
a requisite of the production of wealth; these are labourers and implements 
only. 
Its common meaning is that in which I have used it—the share of the 
direct wealth produced by the labour of the community, to which any 
capitalist can make a valid claim. The owner of implements, cash, mort- 
gages, or any other form of acknowledgment of indebtedness, is called a 
capitalist, because by means of these he can make good a claim on the 
common stock of direct wealth, and not because he owns the things them- 
selves which are not directly useful to him or to anyone else. 
