Wealth in dwellings or public buildings constructed for enjoyment rather than protection of a working community is not capital, and may be destroyed by fire or storm without serious disturbance of industry. The loss is bravely met, the hardship endured and extra energy put into restoration. A farmer may lose a fine house and by living in less comfort for a time restore it, while the loss of his teams or his barns may cripple his industry. In the great Chicago fire of 1871 the wealth destroyed is estimated at $50,000,000, while the loss of actual capital may have been only $5,000,000. An energetic use of the capital remaining wrought apparent wonders in the restoration of wealth. Indeed, the total capital of our country is supposed to be only three times the annual product of industry, though a century of labor could not restore it if destroyed entirely, because effective tools would be wanting.
The capital of an individual is such a portion of his wealth as he is using to maintain and increase his wealth. The capital of a country includes all the farms, so far as they are made such by improvements directly or indirectly, including all ways and means of communication and transportation, for roads contribute to all goods drawn over them; all buildings devoted to systems of production, including necessary protection of laborers themselves; all tools, machines and contrivances for power; all animals employed in connection with industry; all materials of construction or growth; all materials consumed in securing and maintaining power, as fuel, lubricating oil, etc., or in performing operations of manufacture, as dye stuffs; subsistence for the workers, the brutes they use, and the families which keep up the life and comfort of the people; the necessary stock in trade, that all wants may be readily supplied; all the machinery of trade for ready transfers, including any actual wealth in form of money; all the governmental machinery for protection and maintenance of order, as a first essential to wealth-producing.
All these are more simply grouped in their different relations to labor under three classes: first, as sustaining labor by food, clothing, protection and material on which to work; second, as aiding efficiency by tools, machines and stored up forces; third, as stimulating exertion by reducing present anxieties and arousing more far-reaching plans for future undertakings, illustrated by possession of satisfactory stocks of goods or comfortable homes for families.