Capital (economics)
In economics, capital goods or capital are "those durable produced goods that are in turn used as productive inputs for further production" of goods and services.[1] A typical example is the machinery used in a factory. At the macroeconomic level, "the nation's capital stock includes buildings, equipment, software, and inventories during a given year."[2]
Not to be confused with Financial capital or Economic capital.
Capital goods have also been called complex product systems (CoPS).[3] The means of production is as a "...series of heterogeneous commodities, each having specific technical characteristics ..."[4] in the form of a durable good that is used in the production of goods or services. Capital goods are a particular form of economic good and are tangible property. Capital goods are one of the three types of producer goods, the other two being land and labour. [5] The three are also known collectively as "primary factors of production".[5] This classification originated during the classical economics period and has remained the dominant method for classification.
Capital can be increased by the use of the factors of production, which however excludes certain durable goods like homes and personal automobiles that are not used in the production of saleable goods and services.
In Marxian critique of political economy, capital is viewed as a social relation.[6] Critical analysis of the economists portrayal of the capitalist mode of production as a transhistorical state of affairs distinguishes different forms of capital:[6]
Adam Smith defined capital as "that part of man's stock which he expects to afford him revenue". In economic models, capital is an input in the production function. The total physical capital at any given moment in time is referred to as the capital stock (not to be confused with the capital stock of a business entity). Capital goods, real capital, or capital assets are already-produced, durable goods or any non-financial asset that is used in production of goods or services.[7]
Detailed classifications of capital that have been used in various theoretical or applied uses generally respect the following division:
Separate literatures have developed to describe both natural capital and social capital. Such terms reflect a wide consensus that nature and society both function in such a similar manner as traditional industrial infrastructural capital, that it is entirely appropriate to refer to them as different types of capital in themselves. In particular, they can be used in the production of other goods, are not used up immediately in the process of production, and can be enhanced (if not created) by human effort.
There is also a literature of intellectual capital and intellectual property law. However, this increasingly distinguishes means of capital investment, and collection of potential rewards for patent, copyright (creative or individual capital), and trademark (social trust or social capital) instruments.
Building on Marx, and on the theories of the sociologist and philosopher Pierre Bourdieu, scholars have recently argued for the significance of "culinary capital" in the arena of food. The idea is that the production, consumption, and distribution of knowledge about food can confer power and status.[17]
Within classical economics, Adam Smith (Wealth of Nations, Book II, Chapter 1) distinguished fixed capital from circulating capital. The former designated physical assets not consumed in the production of a product (e.g., machines and storage facilities), while the latter referred to physical assets consumed in the process of production (e.g., raw materials and intermediate products). For an enterprise, both were types of capital.
Economist Henry George argued that financial instruments like stocks, bonds, mortgages, promissory notes, or other certificates for transferring wealth is not really capital, because "Their economic value merely represents the power of one class to appropriate the earnings of another" and "their increase or decrease does not affect the sum of wealth in the community".[18]
Some thinkers, such as Werner Sombart and Max Weber, locate the concept of capital as originating in double-entry bookkeeping, which is thus a foundational innovation in capitalism, Sombart writing in "Medieval and Modern Commercial Enterprise" that:[19]
Karl Marx adds a distinction that is often confused with David Ricardo's. In Marxian theory, variable capital refers to a capitalist's investment in labor-power, seen as the only source of surplus-value. It is called "variable" since the amount of value it can produce varies from the amount it consumes, i.e., it creates new value. On the other hand, constant capital refers to investment in non-human factors of production, such as plant and machinery, which Marx takes to contribute only its own replacement value to the commodities it is used to produce.
Investment or capital accumulation, in classical economic theory, is the production of increased capital. Investment requires that some goods be produced that are not immediately consumed, but instead used to produce other goods as capital goods. Investment is closely related to saving, though it is not the same. As Keynes pointed out, saving involves not spending all of one's income on current goods or services, while investment refers to spending on a specific type of goods, i.e., capital goods.
Austrian School economist Eugen Boehm von Bawerk maintained that capital intensity was measured by the roundaboutness of production processes. Since capital is defined by him as being goods of higher-order, or goods used to produce consumer goods, and derived their value from them, being future goods.
Human development theory describes human capital as being composed of distinct social, imitative and creative elements:
This theory is the basis of triple bottom line accounting and is further developed in ecological economics, welfare economics and the various theories of green economics. All of which use a particularly abstract notion of capital in which the requirement of capital being produced like durable goods is effectively removed.
The Cambridge capital controversy was a dispute between economists at Cambridge, Massachusetts based MIT and University of Cambridge in the UK about the measurement of capital. The Cambridge, UK economists, including Joan Robinson and Piero Sraffa claimed that there is no basis for aggregating the heterogeneous objects that constitute 'capital goods.'
Political economists Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler have suggested that capital is not a productive entity, but solely financial and that capital values measure the relative power of owners over the broad social processes that bear on profits.[20]
