The capital of a merchant, for example, is altogether a circulating
capital. He has occasion
for no machines or instruments of trade, unless his
shop, or warehouse, be considered as such.
Some part of the capital of every
master artificer or manufacturer must be fixed in the
instruments of his
trade. This part, however, is very small in some, and very great in others.
A
master tailor requires no other instruments of trade but a parcel of
needles. Those of the
master shoemaker are a little, though but a very
little, more expensive. Those of the weaver
rise a good deal above those of
the shoemaker. The far greater part of the capital of all such
master
artificers, however, is circulated, either in the wages of their workmen, or in
the price
of their materials, and repaid with a profit by the price of the
work.
In other works a much greater fixed capital is required. In a great
iron-work, for example,
the furnace for melting the ore, the forge, the
slitt- mill, are instruments of trade which cannot
be erected without a very
great expense. In coal-works and mines of every kind, the
machinery necessary
both for drawing out the water and for other purposes is frequently
still
more expensive.
That part of the capital of the farmer which is
employed in the instruments of agriculture is
a fixed, that which is Nike Free 5.0
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employed in the wages and maintenance of his labouring servants, is
a
circulating capital. He makes a profit of the one by keeping it in his own
possession, and of
the other by parting with it. The price or value of his
labouring cattle is a fixed capital in the
same manner as that of the
instruments of husbandry. Their maintenance is a circulating
capital in the
same manner as that of the labouring servants. The farmer makes his profit
by
keeping the labouring cattle, and by parting with their maintenance. Both
the price and the
maintenance of the cattle which are brought in and
fattened, not for labour, but for sale, are a
circulating capital. The farmer
makes his profit by parting with them. A flock of sheep or a
herd of cattle
that, in a breeding country, is bought in, neither for labour, nor for sale, but
in
order to make a profit by their wool, by their milk, and by their
increase, is a fixed capital.
The profit is made by keeping them. Their
maintenance is a circulating capital. The profit is
made by parting with it;
and it comes back with both its own profit and the profit upon the
whole
price of the cattle, in the price of the wool, the milk, and the increase. The
whole value
of the seed, too, is properly a fixed capital. Though it goes
backwards and forwards between
the ground and the granary, it never changes
masters, and therefore does not properly
circulate. The farmer makes his
profit, not by its sale, but by its increase.
The general stock of any
country or society is the same with that of all its inhabitants or
members,
and therefore naturally divides itself into the same three portions, each of
which has
a distinct function or office.
The first is that portion which
is reserved for immediate consumption, and of which the
characteristic is,
that it affords no revenue or profit. It consists in the stock of food,
clothes,
household furniture, etc., which have been purchased by their proper
consumers, but which
are not yet entirely consumed. The whole stock of mere
dwelling- houses too, subsisting at any
one time in the country, make a part
of this first portion. The stock that is laid out in a house,
if it is to be
the dwellinghouse of the proprietor, ceases from that moment to serve in
the
function of a capital, or to afford any revenue to its owner. A
dwellinghouse, as such,
contributes nothing to the revenue of its inhabitant;
and though it is, no doubt, extremely
useful to him, it is as his clothes and
household furniture are useful to him, which, however,
makes a Nike Air
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part of his expense, and not of his revenue. If it is to be
let to a tenant for rent, as the
house itself can produce nothing, the tenant
must always pay the rent out of some other
revenue which he derives either
from labour, or stock, or land. Though a house, therefore,
may yield a
revenue to its proprietor, and thereby serve in the function of a capital to
him, it
cannot yield any to the public, nor serve in the function of a
capital to it, and the revenue of
the whole body of the people can never be
in the smallest degree increased by it. Clothes, and
household furniture, in
the same manner, sometimes yield a revenue, and thereby serve in the
function
of a capital to particular persons. In countries where masquerades are common,
it is a
trade to let out masquerade dresses for a night. Upholsterers
frequently let furniture by the
month or by the year. Undertakers let the
furniture of funerals by the day and by the week.
Many people let furnished
houses, and get a rent, not only for the use of the house, but for that
of
the furniture. The revenue, however, which is derived from such things must
always be
ultimately drawn from some other source of revenue. Of all parts of
the stock, either of an
individual, or of a society, reserved for immediate
consumption, what is laid out in houses is
most slowly consumed. A stock of
clothes may last several years: a stock of furniture half a
century or a
century: but a stock of houses, well built and properly taken care of, may
last
many centuries. Though the period of their total consumption, however,
is more distant, they
are still as really a stock reserved for immediate
consumption as either clothes or household
furniture.
