So skill, once acquired, is combined with all future efforts in the same line, or even in slightly different lines.
Care must be taken not to confound our sixth combination with the ideas conveyed by the word "capital." Cotton produced, and not yet woven or worn, is called capital. It is not necessary for us to quarrel with that use of the term. We may use it in the same way without detriment to the clearness of our ideas, or the force of logic. For that matter, we may call anything capital which has been produced and not yet consumed. We shall have only incidental use for the term, and in most cases the ordinary business sense of it will do.
These six forms of the combination of human efforts for the purpose of securing an increase of results more than commensurate with the increase of effort are, like the simple elements in chemistry or the three forms of the lever in mechanics, generally found united or co-working, and in an infinite variety of ways. Thus, as between themselves, the actors in a play exemplify the second combination; as between them and the audience, the combination is of the fifth form. So, in the production of cotton cloth, there is combination in the second form as between the different classes of operatives in the factory, and combination in the third form as between all the factory operatives and all the employés in the cotton-field.
But we plainly see that the sustenance of civilized human beings is the work of a mutual-aid society of stupendous proportions and well-nigh inscrutable complexity. To a rapidly growing extent it takes in the whole world. But the greater the civilization the greater the complexity, and the greater the proportion of mutual helpfulness to immediate self-helpfulness. Hence the greater difficulty, but at the same time the greater necessity, of a thorough study of the methods of this mutual helpfulness, and of the terms on which it is rendered.
To this study I hope to contribute something, and I shall not be disappointed if it is something very far short of a revolution. It may be nothing but the discovery, or selection, or utilization of a new point of view. But even this may enable some fellow-student of taller stature to catch a glimpse of some landmark, or alignment of land-marks, which will prove a key to the whole situation. Political economy has been termed the science of wealth; in order to widen the field, "wealth" has been called "weal"; again, it has been called the science of exchanges, and again the word "exchanges" has been widened to admit of an evidently needed expansion of treatment. I propose to let these words shrink back to their every-day meaning, and adopt a treatment and a definition of the science which will take in every effect of social relations on individual sustenance of every degree of amplitude. For want of a better term to express this broad view, I have translated "political economy" into "social sustenance." The new term is intended to interpret, and not to supersede, the old one.
