Spencer Heath Archive

Item 567

Thoughts dictated to Spencer MacCallum for a letter to Roy A. Foulke preliminary to examining the question of national income.

No date

In calculating what is called national income, why should we consider national income instead of local or regional for the purposes of statistical information? It is suggested that any collective income should refer rather to the market, in which all products and services are pooled by those who have them to sell and out of which all services and goods must be purchased, in any trading economy. Trade is not political; hence it is no respecter of political frontiers except so far as it is regulated, restricted or prevented across such frontiers. Trade does however respect physical distances and obstacles. Hence it might be more useful to keep statistics of national income on a regional basis, the demarcation between regions being bodies of water, mountain ranges or possibly rivers and other natural regional frontiers.