[Letter] Jan.29,1890 [to F.H. Giddings]

Jan. 29, 1890, [n. p.]

Dear Friend,
        You have made a
grand contribution to
economic thought in any
case. I have formed some
conclusions about it and
want to ruminate farther
on the general subject. I
should have written earlier
but I had Zuckerkandl
on my hands to be
finished for the Quarterly
by a given date. My
article, by the way, goes
over till June. My report
the March No. too full for
it. I had an idea it would
prove so at this late day.
 I am not going this
morning into any controversy
about your final conclusion
because I have only just
gotten to work on the article.
What I now see is that you
have done a masterly bit of
analysis that cannot fail to
be fruitful. You have brushed
off a bit of cobwebs. Among
the rest some things about
storing food. If I take
issue as to - not conclusions
- but points of view it
will begin here. Have you
gone far enough in exposing
the errors about storing food?
Is it right to treat as a
capitalistic storing the
accumulations that are
made necessary by the seasons?
In fishing even on the
hand-to-mouth plan we
must allow for bad weather
and high incidental stores
of small amounts. At the
end of the year there will
have been no accumulation.
In grain farming we must
allow for winter. Then, even
in the hand-to-mouth plan
we accumulates in certain
months, but not from year
to year. In a sense this
would be a capitalistic process
to a primitive berry eater
who wished to effect the
transition to an agricultural
life. He could then collect
berries, etc. to last a few
months, then find himself
a grain raiser. After that the
storing would be incidental to
the process. He could, however,
effect the transition without
any store of berries - could he
not? According to my way
of looking at the process
all this food storing is
unnecessary in the strict
sense - and most of it
is practically unreal.
 One little point -
almost a quibble - and I
stop for the morning. I
do not mean to let you
off in the main point;
but I am in the midst of
the article at this moment.
Can you truthfully say all
capitalization is under the
compulsion created by diminishing
returns for energy expended in
obtaining subsistence only?
If I am escaping from Siberia
to a ship lying in a North
China port - if I can go 50
miles per day when strong, and
25 when weakened by exhaustion,
if I have 5 days to go 250
miles the diminishing returns
will compel me to capitalize by
stealing a donkey in order to
reach the ship. I must
reach the ship, and it is of
no use going a single mile
farther. That is one conception
of the situation, and it justifies
your statement.
 If I am escaping across
country toward Persia and have
all my life to make the trip
it will be agreeable to me
to go faster than I can
walk and with the same
amount of daily fatigue that an
easy day's journey would cost,
get to Persia in three
months instead of in a
year. The higher wants here
induce capitalization. I
steal a mule for the higher
gratification I get from the
use of it. The practical truth
is capital is either compelled
as in case 1 or induced as
in case 2. Which corresponds
with the fact?
 When we put primitive
states before a reader ought
we not to use them in a
way that makes them types of
actual phenomena of the present?
Is continued accumulation
at any one time compelled
or induced? The preservation
of existing capital is compelled,
for population has come to
lean on it to coordinate
natural forces efficiently. The
increasing of it per capita seems to
me to be induced. By the way
you hit off one of two weak points
in B. Bawerk capitally when you
spoke of his idea that capital is not a
productive agent - we must have the
whole theory out at some time.

        Yours Very Truly,
              J. B. Clark