The arguments below are common to those in Proposition 8.1 below: Let us call the sum of the total income from savings placements and the total income from labor the total income.
1. Let us call income only the counterpart of the exchange of an elementary commodity.
The elementary commodity is a service either of labor or of the investment of savings. When this commodity is the service of labor, its counterpart is income from labor generically called wages. When it is the service of investment, its counterpart is income from savings. Interest Interest or profits constitute this second kind of income.
The distinction between income and transfer is necessary for a compelling reason. The flow of donations, made up largely of those who are forced by means of taxes and compulsory contributions, comes from levies on the income itself. The term "transfer income" is contradictory because in the economy of a household a product, in the sense of that word in accounting, is always either an income obtained in exchange for the provision of a service or a subsidy.
2. Income from labor is only received by individuals.
To equate Revenu the proceeds of an enterprise's sales or the proceeds of taxes with income makes us lose sight of what is specific and essential about personal income. To say that an allowance received by an individual is (transfer) income Transfert_Economiquehas the same effect.
3. Only individuals and non-commercial associations save.
To equate the reserves built up by enterprises with "savings" makes us lose sight of what is specific and essential about the savings of individuals and non-commercial associations.
4. Only individuals and non-commercial associations receive income from savings.
Individuals and non-commercial associations sell the investment of their savings. This sale is that of an elementary commodity. The turnover of enterprises comes from the sale of composite commodities; to say that these figures are the income of enterprises blurs the perception of economic reality. Tax revenues are imposed transfers and not counterparts of economic exchanges; to say that these revenues are the income of the civil service blurs the perception of economic reality.
5. A key reality is related to income.
The economy exists for individuals and their non-commercial associations and by them, first and last resort – by and for individuals and families. The attribution of the prerogatives of suppliers of basic commodities to other organizations, including enterprises, elementary commodities contradicts reality. Reason must reject these attributions all the more because their political undertones are very clumsy.