isting plant
as "saving"; what he puts into additional plant alone does he reckon
"savings." It would be well for economists to clearly recognise that
this business aspect of capital and saving is also the consistent
scientific aspect. "Saving" will then be seen to apply exclusively to
such increased production of plant and productive goods as will
afterwards yield an increased crop of consumptive goods, provided the
community is willing to consume them. "Saving" is postponed
consumption--_i.e._, the production of "future goods," plant,
machinery, raw materials in their several stages, instead of
commodities suitable for immediate consumption.

Sec. 9. There are, in fact, two distinct motives which induce individuals
to continue to produce, one is the desire to consume, the other the
desire to save--_i.e._, to postpone consumption. It is true that the
latter may be said also to involve a desire to consume the results of
the savings at some indefinitely future time, but the motive of their
production at present is a desire to reduce the quantity of the
present consumption of the community, and to increase the quantity of
postponed consumption.

It is this consideration which gives the answer to the single sentence
of J.S. Mill, which has been sometimes held to offer a complete
refutation of the notion of an existing state of over-supply. "The
error is in not perceiving that, though all who have an equivalent to
give _might_ be fully provided with every conceivable article which
they desire, the fact that they go on adding to the production proves
that this is not actually the case."[161] Here the present desire to
consume either what is produced or its equivalent is assumed to be the
only motive which can lead an individual to produce. The fact that
people go on producing is regarded as proof that they are not "fully
provided with every conceivable article they desire." If this were
true it would be a final and conclusive refutation of the idea of
over-supply. But if saving means postponed consumption, and the desire
to save, as well as the desire to consume, is a _vera causa_ in
production, then the fact of continued production affords no proof
that such production must be required to supply articles which are
desired for consumption. Ultimately a belief that some one will
consent to consume what is produced underlies the continued production
of "a saving person," but, as we shall see presently, the belief of a
compe