Page:Progress and poverty - an inquiry into the cause of industrial depressions, and of increase of want with increase of wealth - the remedy (IA progresspovertyi00georiala).pdf/69

Chap. II. what is often forgotten—namely, that the terms "wealth," capital," "wages," and the like, as used in political economy are abstract terms, and that nothing can be generally affirmed or denied of them that cannot be affirmed or denied of the whole class of things they represent. The failure to bear this in mind has led to much confusion of thought, and permits fallacies, otherwise transparent, to pass for obvious truths. Wealth being an abstract term, the idea of wealth, it must be remembered, involves the idea of exchangeability. The possession of wealth to a certain amount is potentially the possession of any or all species of wealth to that equivalent in exchange. And, consequently, so of capital.