Note 17 — ON THE NATURE OF CAPITAL[1]

As should be evident from the run of the argument in the earlier portions of this paper, the use of the words "tax," "deduction," "abstraction," in this connection, is not to be taken as implying approval or disapproval of the phenomena so characterised. The words are used for want of better terms to indicate the source of business gains, and objectively to characterise the relation of give-and-take between industry and ordinary capitalistic business, on the one hand, and between ordinary business and this business enterprise on the higher plane, on the other hand.