so much of a
natural agent to be had as would be used if it could be obtained for the
asking, the ownership or use of it acquires an exchangeable value. Where
there is more land wanted for cultivation than a place possesses of a
certain quality and advantages of situation, land of that quality and
situation may be sold for a price, or let for an annual rent.

Labour employed on external nature in modes subservient to production is
employed either directly, or indirectly, in previous or concomitant
operations designed to facilitate, perhaps essential to the
possibilities of, the actual production. One of the modes in which
labour is employed indirectly requires particular notice, namely, when
it is employed in producing subsistence to maintain the labourers while
they are engaged in the production. This previous employment of labour
is an indispensable condition to every productive operation. In order to
raise any product there are needed labour, tools, and materials, and
food to feed the labourers. But the tools and materials can be
remunerated only from the product when obtained. The food, on the
contrary, is intrinsically useful, and the labour expended in producing
it, and recompensed by it, needs not to be remunerated over again from
the produce of the subsequent labour which it has fed.

The claim to remuneration founded on the possession of food is
remuneration for abstinence, not for labour. If a person has a store of
food, he has it in his power to consume it himself in idleness. If,
instead, he gives it to productive labourers to support them during
their work, he can claim a remuneration from the produce. He will, in
fact, expect his advance of food to come back to him with an increase,
called, in the language of business, a profit.

Thus, there is necessary to productive operations, besides labour and
natural agents, a stock, previously accumulated, of the products of
labour. This accumulated stock is termed capital. Capital is frequently
supposed to be synonymous with money, but money can afford no assistance
to production. To do this it must be exchanged for other things capable
of contributing to production. What capital does for production is to
afford the shelter, tools, and materials which the work requires, and to
feed and otherwise maintain the labourers during the process. Whatever
things are destined for this use are capital. That industry is limited
by capital is self-evident. There can be no mo