Land = the whole material universe outside of man himself, for it is only by having access to land, from which his very body is drawn, that man can come in contact with or use nature. The term land embraces, in short, all natural materials, forces, and opportunities, (therefore, nothing that is freely supplied by nature such as rich field, a vein of ore or falling stream can be properly classed as capital).



Labor= any and all human exertion for the procurement of wealth. Wealth can only be created by labor directly applied to land, to exchange, or to exposing existing items of wealth to the reproductive and transmutative forces of nature. The last two methods of labor require capital and must, necessarily, derive from the first.



Wealth = natural products that have been secured, moved, combined, separated, or in other ways modified by human exertion, so as to fit them for the gratification of human desires. It is, in other words, labor impressed upon matter in such a way as to store up, as the heat of the sun is stored up in coal, the power of human labor to minister to human desires. Wealth is not the sole object of labor, for labor is also expended in ministering directly to desire; but it is the object and result of what we call productive labor—that is, labor which gives value to material things. Nothing which nature supplies to man without his labor is wealth, nor yet does the expenditure of labor result in wealth unless there is a tangible product which has and retains the power of ministering to desire. Only such things can be wealth the production of which increases and the destruction of which decreases the aggregate of wealth.



Capital = wealth devoted to a certain purpose, nothing can be capital which does not fall within the definition of wealth. But though all capital is wealth, all wealth is not capital. Capital is only a part of wealth—that part, namely, which is devoted to the aid of production. The specific and only difference between an object of wealth and an object of capital is whether they are or are not in the possession of the consumer. Such articles of wealth as in themselves, in their uses, or in their products, are yet to be exchanged are capital. Articles of wealth that are in the hands of the end consumer are not capital. Hence, capital is wealth in course of exchange, understanding exchange to include not merely the passing from hand to hand, but also such transmutations as occur when the reproductive or transforming forces of nature are utilized for the increase of wealth.



Money= Money is merely the general medium of exchanges, the common flux through which all transmutations of wealth from one form to another take place. It's value is determined from whatever difficulties may exist to an exchange, as they will generally show themselves on the side of reduction to money, and thus it is mostly easier to exchange money for any other form of wealth than it is to exchange wealth in a particular form into money. This is because there are more holders of wealth who desire to make *some* exchange than there are who desire to make any *particular* exchange. Money is not wealth and therefore, by definition, cannot be counted as capital. It also has no reproductive powers, it simply measures how the power of producing wealth in any form is the power of producing subsistence—and the consumption of wealth in any form, or of wealth-producing power, is equivalent to the consumption of subsistence.



Debt= a stipulation for the transfer of wealth. Things that have an exchange value, and are commonly spoken of as wealth, insomuch as they represent as between individuals, or between sets of individuals, the power of obtaining wealth; but they are not truly wealth, inasmuch as their increase or decrease does not affect the sum of wealth. This includes all bonds, mortgages, promissory notes, bank bills, or other stipulations for the transfer of wealth. This also includes slaves, whose value represents merely the power of one class to appropriate the earnings of another class. It also includes land titles and monopolies on other natural opportunities, the value of which is but the result of the acknowledgment in favor of certain persons of an exclusive right to their use, and which represents merely the power thus given to the owners to demand a share of the wealth produced by those who use them.