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280 ECONOMIC INQUIRIES AND STUDIES
is the substance of much that I propose to say-is, that
the individual analogy fails in the case of a community
or a nation. I t is of the essence of the indi vidual pro-
cess of waste in most cases that the property of the
spendthrift or wastrel should be sold or transferred to
some other person or persons in the community, either
for no consideration or in exchange for goods or ser-
vices forming part of the accruing income of the com-
munity, and which the spendthrift consumes. The
spendthrift parts with property, with things which con-
stitute capital, and receives, in exchange, other things
which are really income, and not capital, and which he
consumes, that is, if he receives any actual equivalent
at all. The final result is that he and his capital are
parted; but the capital itself, the money, the estate, or
the house, of which it consisted, remains, having passed
into the hands of others, sometimes without any real
equivalent, but, at other times, in exchange for part of
the accruing income in the hands of the people to whom
the spendthrift has transferred his property, and whose
share in the transaction is really the investment of an
amount equal to that which the spendthrift has parted
with. There is waste of capital, accordingly, as respects
the individual, but there need be no waste, and usually,
I should say, there is no waste, or very little waste in-
deed, as far as the community is concerned. But when
we come to the caSe of a community or a nation ex-
pending its capital there is, plainly, not the same room
as in the case of an individual for the process of selling
or transferring property, efther for no consideration, or
for commodities and services that are immediately con-
sumed, which makes the waste of capital so easy to the
individual. There are some questions, perhaps, as to
transfers of securities f('om one nation to another, but,
broadly speaking, a community cannot waste capital in
the same way that an individual may do by seI1ing pro-
perty and consuming what is obtained from the sale.
A community cannot sell or transfer to itself. When
a community or nation, therefore, expends or wastes