Economics for Helen by Hilaire Belloc

All the political application of Economics -- that is, all the application of Economic Science to the conduct of families in the State -- turns on The Control of Wealth, and of the things necessary to make wealth.

The first thing to grasp is that _someone_ must control every piece of wealth if it is to be used to any purpose. Every bundle of economic values in the community must be under the control of some human will; otherwise those pieces of wealth "run to waste," that is, are consumed without use to mankind. For instance, a ton of threshed wheat represents a bundle of economic values. It represents a piece of wealth equivalent, in currency measure, to say £16. If no one has the right to decide upon its preservation and use, when and how it is to be kept dry and free from vermin, when and how it is to be ground and the flour made into bread, then it will rot or be eaten by rats, and in a short time its economic values will have disappeared. It will be worthless. The £16 worth of wealth will have been "consumed without use"; in plain language, wasted. But if wealth were all wasted humanity would die out. So men must, of necessity, arrange for a _control_ of all wealth, and this they do by laws which fix the control of one parcel of wealth by one authority, of another by another; men make laws allowing such control by some people and preventing attempted control by other people not authorised. This lawful control over a piece of wealth we call _Property_ in it.

Thus, the coal in your cellar which you have bought is by our laws your property. It is for you to burn it as you want it and when you choose. If another person comes in and takes some of it without your leave, to burn it as _he_ chooses, he is called a thief and punished as such. The coal in the Admiralty Stores is State property. The State has the right to decide into what ships it is to be put and how and when it is to be burnt, and so on. But whether the control is in private hands such as yours, or in the naval authorities who are officers of the State, control there must always be.

When people say that they want to "abolish property," or that "There ought to be no property," they mean _Private_ property: the right of individuals, or families, or corporations to control wealth. Property in the full sense, meaning the control of wealth by _someone_, whether the State, or private individuals, or what not, is inevitable, and is necessary in every human society. So, granting that property must exist, we will first examine the various forms it may take.

At the beginning of our examination we noticed that wealth, owned and controlled by whoever it may be -- the State, or an individual, or a corporation -- is of two kinds. There is the wealth which will be consumed in enjoyment and the wealth which will be consumed in producing future wealth.

The wealth which will be consumed in producing future wealth is, as we have seen, called _Capital_. For instance: if a man has a ton of wheat and eats half of it while he is doing nothing but taking a holiday, or doing work which has some moral but no material effect -- that is not Capital. But if he uses the other half to keep himself alive while he is ploughing and sowing for a future harvest, and keeps a little of it for the seed of that harvest, all that he so uses is _Capital_. Since control of wealth is necessary, no matter of what kind the wealth be, it is clear that there must be property not only in what is about to be consumed in enjoyment but also in Capital. Someone, then, must own Capital.

But here comes in a very important addition. The fertility of land, space upon which to build, mines of metal, water power, natural opportunities of any kind and natural forces, _though they are not wealth_,[2] are the necessary conditions for producing wealth. Someone, therefore, must control these also: someone must have the power of saying, "This field shall be ploughed and sown thus and thus. This waterfall must be made to turn this turbine in such and such a spot, and the power developed must be applied thus and thus. " For if no one had such power the fertility of the land, the force of the stream, would be wasted.

Property, therefore, extends over two fields, one of which is itself divided into two parts. A. -- It extends over natural forces. B. -- It extends over wealth, and, in the case of B, wealth, it extends over B.1 wealth to be used for future production (which kind of wealth, when it is so used, is called Capital), and also B.2 wealth which is going to be consumed without the attempt to produce anything else: consumed, as the phrase goes, "in enjoyment. "[3] Natural forces may be grouped, as we have grouped them in the first part of this book, under the conventional term "Land. " So Property covers Land and Capital, as well as Wealth to be consumed without the attempt to produce other wealth. You may put the whole thing in a diagram thus: --

In studying the social effects of Property it is convenient to group together _Land_ and that part of wealth which is used for further production and is called _Capital_, and to call the two "_the means of production_": because, in a great many social problems the important point is not who owns the Capital separately or the land separately, but who owns the whole bundle of things which constitute the "Means of Production," without which no production can take place.