The non-permanent nature of all ‘wasting assets’ creates a problem which is not dealt with in the theory of timeless production. These assets cannot be directly used to contribute to the output of the time when they have ceased to exist. Insofar as their existence does help to maintain output permanently above the level at which it could be kept with the help of the permanent resources alone, it must do so in an indirect manner. If the fact that we have command over resources which remain useful only for a limited period of time did not help us to use the services of the permanent resources more effectively, it would be quite impossible to keep our income permanently above the level where it would stay if these non-permanent resources had never been available. We might stretch their use over a longer period of time, but ultimately we should inevitably exhaust them and should then have to be content with what services the permanent resources could render by themselves. It is this problem of why the existence of a stock of non-permanent resources enables us to maintain production permanently at a higher level than would be possible without them, which is the peculiar problem connected with what we call capital.
—F. A. Hayek, The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek, vol. 12, The Pure Theory of Capital, ed. Lawrence H. White (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2007), 74.
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