is attempt to distinguish between the two takes the form of a criticism
of Bastiat, according to whom the typical source of interest is the
added productivity which a given amount of human effort acquires by the
use of certain lendable implements. As a type of such implements or
machines, Bastiat takes a plane. The maker of a plane lends this plane
to another man, who is thus enabled to finish off in a week four more
planks than he could have done had he used an adze. If, at the end of
the week, the borrower does nothing more than return the plane in good
repair to the lender, the borrower gains by the transaction; but the
maker and lender not only gains nothing, he loses. For a week he loses
his implement which he otherwise might have used himself, and the extra
planks which, by the use of it, he could have produced just as easily
as his fellow. Such an arrangement would be obviously and absurdly
unjust. Justice demands--and practice here follows justice--that he get
at the end of the week, not only his own plane back again, but two of
the extra planks due to its use besides. A plane, in short--such is
Bastiat's meaning, though he does not put it in this precise way--is a
possession which is fruitful no less than a sheep and a ram are, or a
wine which adds to its value by the mere process of being kept, and it,
therefore, yields interest for a virtually similar reason. George,
however, seeks to dispose of Bastiat's argument thus: If the maker of
the plane lends it, he says, instead of himself using it, and the
borrower borrows a plane, instead of himself making one, such an
arrangement is simply due to the fact that both parties for the moment
happen to find it convenient. For, George observes, it is no part of
Bastiat's contention that the plane is due to the exertion of any
faculties possessed by the maker only. Either man could make it, just as
either man could use it. Why, then, should A pay a tribute to B for the
use of something which, to-morrow, if not to-day, he could make for
himself without paying anything to anybody?

Now, if Bastiat's plane is to be taken as signifying a plane only, the
criticism of George is just. But what George forgets is that, if the
plane means a plane only--an implement which any man could make just as
well as the lender--interest on planes, besides being morally
indefensible, would as a matter of fact never be paid at all. Bastiat's
plane, however, stands for a kind of capital, the bo