1831.] 
On the Source of Wealth. 
103 
«iia than would otherwise have fallen to an equal quantity of unaided 
merely accumulated labour ; anil as wages ai 
in the idea, also prevalent, that profits are the wages of the accumulated labour 
which has been employed. • 
But the error involved in this misnomer, will be more apparent, when we consi- 
der the other case given ; where a greater produce is the result of an equal quanti- 
ty of labour, merely from the circumstance of that equal labour being more season- 
ably applied. In this case the capital, or what would be termed erroneously, t e 
accumulated labour, is exactly the same in amount as the direct labour ; and yet, 
when this amount is employed as capital, and when it is employed as labour, it 
gives off very different results. 
If capital were merely accumulated labour, it would act in giving off products 
precisely as labour acts, and the produce of equal quantities of either would be 
equal. But they act on production in manners perfectly distinct, and produce 
effects in no ivay analogous ; and, therefore, it appears to me, that nothing but mis- 
conception Can follow the use of the phrases “ accumulated labour,” or “ labour 
in the last resort,” of which products are the result, when we mean, in reality, the 
capital which has been sunk in their production. 
The produce of labour and capital conjointly, can never be obtained by the sepa- 
rate influence of either. Why then, by calling capital labour, and labour capital, 
should we confound these palpable and important distinctions? The immediate 
labour, and the accumulated labour, bestowed on a product, must convey the idea, 
that a product is solely the result of labour, which labour has, at more than one 
time or place, been brought into operation upon it : but it conveys no distinct idea 
that the results of previous labour have been so admirably disposed, and so applied 
to subsequent production, that a result has been obtained, possibly greatly beyond 
what direct labour, how much soever accumulated, could ever have yielded. When, 
on the other hand, we state a produce to be the result of capital, being previously 
aware how very differently from labour capital may affect production, we at 
once get rid of the idea that mere labour, however greatly accumulated, had been 
the sole agents ; we know that other productive arrangements, besides mere working, 
had been introduced ; and we know also, that a new class of persons concerned 
in production as principals, has come into employment ; whose incomes are of a 
nature different from wages, because of their being under the influence of laws very 
different, indeed, from the laws regulating the incomes of mere labourers. 
Let us now, after this digression, examine, in detail, the manner in which indi- 
viduals are affected, by the introduction of capital in masses into cultivation. The 
motive for limiting production, by which a capitalist is actuated, differs from that 
by which a person is guided, who, without the use of accumulations, dresses the 
soil, in order that he and his may subsist on the whole produce realized, in excess 
to the reserve for next season's seed. Suppose that I and my family, consisting, in all, 
of five persons, realize from a certain tract, without the aid of accumulated capital, 
merely sufficient for our maintenance ; and that we find, when more than five work 
on this tract, although our so doing may increase the produce, yet that we do not 
increase it in such proportion, that a full maintenance for six, or any greater num- 
ber, is set free, beyond what is required for seed. The employment of labour, there- 
fore, which could by us be effected, had reached its utmost when five worked on 
the spot : more could not subsist thereby, because their existence depended on the 
produce of this land ; there could not be found fewer permanently working here* 
