e absolutely fluid, that the quantity of
soundly-placed investments were indefinitely expansible, and that new
forms of capital had in no case the power to oust or negative the use
of old forms of capital. But this we have seen is not the case. If
there existed absolute fluidity of competition in all forms of
capital, the fact that interest for new investments stood above zero
would be a proof that there was not excess of forms of capital.
Capital appears to have this fluidity when it is regarded from the
abstract financial point of view. A man who has "saved" appears to
hold his "savings" in the form of bank credit, or other money which he
is able to invest in any way he chooses. But, as we have seen, the
real "savings," which represent his productive effort plus his
abstinence, are of necessity embodied in some material forms, and are
therefore devoid of that fluidity which appears to attach to them when
reflected in bank money.

Sec. 15. The evils of trade depression, or excessive growth of the forms
of capital beyond the limits imposed by consumption, are traced in
large measure directly, but also indirectly, to the free play of
individual interests in the development of machine-production. The
essential irregularities of invention, the fluctuations of public
taste, the artificial restrictions of markets, all enable individual
capitalists to gain at the public expense. The added interests of its
individual members do not make the interest of the community. All
these modes of conflict between the individual and the public interest
derive force from the complexity of modern capitalist production.

In fastening upon the uncontrolled growth of machinery the chief
responsibility for that depression of trade which is derived from an
attempt to devote too large a proportion of the productive power of
the community to forms of "saving," two points should be clearly
understood.

In the first place, it is the forms of capital and not real capital
which are produced in excess. If there are 500 spinning-mills in
Lancashire where 300 would suffice, the destruction of 200 mills would
no whit diminish the amount of real capital. If 200 mills were burnt
down, though the individual owners would sustain a loss, that loss,
estimated in money, would be compensated by a money rise in the value
of the other mills. The quantity of real capital in cotton-spinning is
dependent upon the demand for the use of such forms of capital--that
i