Ordinarily investment and consumption are considered to be opposites in that we save and invest our money for future consumption or we spend money on things we now consume, thus not having for future use what is spent. Economists divide spending into investment and consumption, and they label goods to be consumables or capital goods. But I believe this is a categorization that is not the most helpful way of looking at investment and consumption.

I believe it is more helpful to look at goods and services in terms of whether using them depletes them (and possibly other goods and services), thus decreasing the number of future Goods and Services available, whether using them does not substantially change what is left, or whether using them helps us produce more or better Goods and Services than if we had not used them. Investment is generally assumed to be the last, consumption the first, of these alternatives, but they do not correspond exactly. For example, toys would generally be considered consumables; but insofar as the little flying propellor-on-a-stick toy brought home by Orville and Wilbur Wright's father to them, helped spur their interest in developing a flying machine, and gave them some clue how to do it, it helped bring into being Goods and Services worth billions or trillions of times its meager material value. In the Wright home that toy was an investment; in any other home, it was a consumable that eventually just sat in a box or went into the trash bin. A typewriter bought by Hemingway, a piano bought by Beethoven, or paper used by Shakespeare, had much more investment or instrumental value than a typewriter, piano, or paper purchased by the average person, who uses them up while giving us little in return for that use.

I assume that in conventional economics, putting money into a timber business is investing, but the lumber one produces may be a consumable or durable good; consumable if it is made into broomsticks, newspapers, or even houses, but durable if it is made into factories, hammer handles, or wine barrels. Further, there seems to be a substantial difference between clearing trees faster than you grow new ones back, and clearing trees slower than you grow them back. Clearing them faster uses up valuable resources; clearing them slower does not. A timber business that sows more than it reaps is investing in the future as well as consuming in the present, but a timber business that harvests more than it sows, especially if it harvests everything, is not investing in the future at all, but simply consuming, trees and wood even if it makes a vast financial profit and supplies a need or demand.

Of course it cannot always be known at the time whether a given action will be profitable in the sense of increasing benefits, not just money, (i.e., produce additional Goods and Services other than just what using it gives) or not or whether it might even be wasteful (i.e., squandered with little or no benefit). But we can think in terms of attempted production of additional Goods and Services (investment) and in terms of consumption that has no further intention. And we can often tell at some future time then whether an investment was successful or not or whether a resource ended up merely be consumed (providing a benefit only in its use) or squandered (not even providing much benefit in its use, misuse, or mere loss).

The point of my conception of investment and consumption is that if we have any concern for our own future, or for future generations, we need to think of investment as expanding opportunities for reaping future benefits, not as expanding opportunities for current or short-term benefits at the expense of future benefits, which would be consumption or squandering. Also investment needs not to be thought of as the spending of money in order to make more money, since a financial profit may not produce a real profit, or the most advantageous profit (as in when a timber business ruins a forest at great financial profit or the ivory industry destroys all the elephants or we collectively ruin the ozone and cause whatever harms that might bring about).

Further, we need to think of investments in terms of trying to maximize benefits (fairly), not just trying to create some additional benefits. For example, if a potentially great golfer decides to go into brain surgery and is moderately successful at it, or if a potentially great brain surgeon gives up medicine for golf, at which she is moderately successful, then both may be making a profitable investment, but not the most profitable investment they could make. They may not benefit themselves or the community as much as they could have. Or suppose a person who likes to think while she is driving to work alone instead chooses to car pool in order to conserve fuel. That may save fuel but may cost more stress or may cost productive ideas. Or someone who thinks better when in conversation or who really enjoys camaraderie during commuting may actually be more productive if they join the right car pool rather than driving alone. Sometimes one can experiment to find one's most productive activities, but unfortunately, sometimes investments, such as education or training may require choices that are difficult or impossible to know which may be the more productive investment of time.