FIRST APPROXIMATION

Bawerk has so well said, at bottom a sale, that is, it isthe exchange of the right to present or immediately ensu-ing income for the right to future or more remote income.A borrower is simply a seller of a note of which the lenderis the buyer. A man who buys a bond, for example, maybe regarded indifferently as a lender or as a buyer ofproperty.

The concept of a loan may therefore now be dispensedwith by being merged in the concept of a sale. Every saletransfers property rights; that is, it transfers the title toincome of some kind. By selling some property rights andbuying others it is possible to transform one’s incomestream at will into any desired time shape. Thus, if aman buys an orchard, he is providing himself with futureincome in the form of apples. If, instead, he buys apples,he is providing himself with similar but more immediateincome. If he buys securities, he is providing himself withfuture money, convertible, when received, into applesor other real income. Inasmuch as the productive lifeof a mine is shorter generally than that of a railway, ifhis security is a share in a mine, his income stream isless lasting than if the security is stock in a railway,though at first it should be larger, relatively to the sumpaid for it.

Purchasing the right to remote enjoyable income, aswas explained in Chapter I, is called investing; whilepurchasing more immediate enjoyable income is spend-ing. These, however, are purely relative concepts; forremote and immediate are relative terms. Buying an auto-mobile is investing as contrasted with spending the moneyfor food and drink, but may be called spending as con-trasted with investing in real estate. And yet the anti-thesis between spending money and investing is im-

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