Page:Walter Renton Ingalls - Wealth and Income of the American People (1924).pdf/178

156 while Russia has a great deal. So it is with the United States. We have immense wealth in forests, mines, grazing lands, etc. that do not appear in our inventories, or if so only to a slight extent, which nevertheless play an immense part in establishing our position as a nation of great wealth.

The foregoing estimates that I have made pertain only to the physical wealth of the American people, plus bills due from foreign countries. We possess also a large, intangible wealth, which represents work done and stored up just as much as railways do. Thus the publishing business of the country is worth vastly more than the real estate, machines, etc., that are used in connection with it. The mere organization for the purpose of conducting all kinds of business is a form of intangible wealth that has been acquired only by vast expenditure of work and is immensely valuable. In some respects such intangible wealth ranks among the strongest forms of property. A house may be destroyed by fire, suddenly and within a few hours, but the fame of a good newspaper, that maintains its circulation, is apt to be a lasting thing so long as law and order prevail. The value of intangible property is well recognized among persons experienced in business, and by modern economists, but it is not understood by the inexperienced, and least of all by socialists. Physical wealth may be arbitrarily and literally redivided among the people to some extent. That has been done with land in Russia. Stocks of goods may be divided. It is not so easy to divide and distribute a railway or a mine. Hence, the idea of nationalization of such property. Intangible wealth can neither be