ABSTRACT
The satisfaction one derives from feeding the needy is a subjective good, a reward that exists only in the mind of the charitable worker, but there is nothing subjective about the value of work. Work is similar to labor but they are by no means the same thing. It seems at first blush that there are many kinds of work that cannot be fitted to a scale of economic value. The success of a community and of an economy is for the most part measured by the work that is done there. Capital is simply money spent—that is to say, value expended—to produce something or some skill or knowledge that is valued not for itself, but for how it contributes to the value of work. The capital of modern economics is not land, though land is still important, nor is it embodied in the dumb, giant machines of the nineteenth century.
