Capital, Interest, and Diminishing Returns

Abstract

I. The Ricardian view as a starting-point: advances to laborers, 334.—Are there advances? Clark's view considered, 336.—Do capital goods reproduce themselves, and does their maintenance involve abstinence? Advances to laborers in a complex society, 339.—II. The law of diminishing returns as applied to capital by Carver, 348; by Clark, 350; by Böhm-Bawerk, 352.—Criticism of this view, 353.—Static and dynamic conditions, 356.—The law of diminishing returns and the law of diminishing utility not the same, 360.—Conclusion, 362.