The-Morality-of-Capitalism-PDF

owner, actual or potential, reflects at any moment its expectedincome-yielding capacity. This, in its turn, will depend on theuses to which the object can be turned. The mere ownership ofobjects, therefore, does not necessarily confer wealth; it is theirsuccessful use that confers it. Not ownership but use of resourcesis the source of income and wealth. An ice-cream factory in NewYork may mean wealth to its owner; the same ice-cream factoryin Greenland would scarcely be a resource.In a world of unexpected change, the maintenance of wealthis always problematical; and in the long run it may be said to beimpossible. In order to be able to maintain a given amount ofwealth, which could be transferred by inheritance from one generationto the next, a family would have to own such resources aswill yield a permanent net income stream, i.e., a stream of surplusof output value over the cost of factor services complementaryto the resources owned. It seems that this would be possible onlyeither in a stationary world, a world in which today is as yesterdayand tomorrow like today, and in which thus, day after day, andyear after year, the same income will accrue to the same ownersor their heirs; or if all resource owners had perfect foresight.Since both cases are remote from reality we can safely ignorethem. What, then, in reality happens to wealth in a world ofunexpected change?All wealth consists of capital assets that, in one way or another,embody or at least ultimately reflect the material resources of production,the sources of valuable output. All output is produced byhuman labor with the help of combinations of such resources. Forthis purpose, resources have to be used in certain combinations;complementarity is of the essence of resource use. The modes ofthis complementarity are in no way “given” to the entrepreneurswho make, initiate, and carry out production plans. There is inreality no such thing as a production function. On the contrary,the task of the entrepreneur consists precisely in finding, in a worldof perpetual change, which combination of resources will yield, inthe conditions of today, a maximum surplus of output over inputvalue, and in guessing which will do so in the probable conditionsof tomorrow, when output values, cost of complementary input,and technology all will have changed.91