But the employment of the gross proceeds, their allotment to the maintenance of capital, consumption, and the accumulation of new capital is always the outcome of purposive action on the part of the entrepreneurs and capitalists. Additional capital can be accumulated only by saving, i.e., a surplus of production over consumption. Saving may consist in a restriction of consumption. But it can also be brought about, without a further restriction in consumption and without a change in the input of capital goods, by an increase in net production. Natural conditions have become more propitious.
Harvests are more plentiful.
People have access to more fertile soil and have discovered mines yielding higher returns per unit of input. Epidemics and cattle plagues have subsided. People have succeeded in rendering some production processes more fruitful without investing more capital goods and without a further lengthening of the period of production. Institutional disturbances of production activities have become less frequent. The losses caused by war, revolutions, strikes, sabotage, and other crimes have been reduced.