CodalSearch this book — or all of Codal…⌘K
nydus/The Theory of Business EnterprisePublic

Thorstein Veblen examines the modern industrial system as a structure defined by the machine process and investment for profit. He analyzes how business enterprise and the pursuit of financial gain serve as the primary forces directing contemporary economic organization.

Page 125 of 422
Table of Contents

The Use Of Loan Credit

trial equipment at the starting-point, by approximately the amount of the aggregate deposits and loans on collateral ; (e) the overrating swells the business capital, thereby raises the valuation of collateral, and gives rise to a further extension of credit, with further results of a like nature ; (/) commonly beginning at some point where thei extension of credit is exceptionally large in propoM tion to the material substratum of productive goods, or where the discrepancy between nominal capital] and earning-capacity is exceptionally wide, the overrating is presently recognized by the creditor and a settlement ensues ; (g) on the consequent withdrawal of credit a forced rerating of the aggregate capital follows, bringing the nominal aggregate into approximate accord with the facts of earning-capacity; {/<) the shrinkage which takes place in reducing the aggregate rating of business capital from the basis of capital goods plus loans to the basis of capital goods alone, takes place at the expense of debtors and nominal owners of industrial equipment, in so far as they are solvent ; (i) in the period of liquidation the gain represented by the credit inflation goes to the creditors and claimants of funds outside the industrial process proper, except that so much as is cancelled in bad debts is written off; (j') apart from secondary effects, such as heightened efficiency of industry due to inflated values, changes of the rate of interest, insolvencyi

txiscva

H Since the modem industrial situation began to

W take form, there have been two principal forms of

125