be rejected by High Heaven and Whitehall, but no one can afford to
despise it in the business world.

The transition from household to business expenditure involves an
extended use of the word utility, which is worth noting. Commodities
like bread, sugar, or privately owned motor-cars are sometimes called
"consumers' goods" in contrast to "producers' goods," which comprise
things such as raw materials, machinery, the services of typists and
so forth, which are bought by business men for business purposes. The
line of division between the two classes is not a sharp one, and we
need not trouble with fine-spun questions as to whether a particular
commodity should in certain circumstances be included under the one
head or the other. But, broadly speaking, things of the former type
yield a direct utility; they contribute directly to the satisfaction
of our pleasures or our wants. Things of the latter type yield rather
an indirect utility. Their utility to the business man who buys them
lies in the assistance they give him in making something else from
which he will derive a profit. The utility of these things is
therefore said to be _derived_ from that of the consumers' goods or
services to which they ultimately contribute. This conception of
derived utility leads to certain complications which we shall have to
notice later.


§6. _The Diminishing Utility of Money_. But one important point must
be emphasized in this chapter. The utility which a business man
derives from the things which he buys for business purposes is the
extra receipts which he obtains thereby. Derived utility, in other
words, is expressed in terms of money, and the idea of its relation to
price presents no difficulty. But the utility of things which are