What does capital look like?

[Blanquist]

Is it just a figurative thing, not literal? Sometimes when I read about capital it sounds like its a person. Do capitalists control capital or does capital control the capitalists?

[Koba Junior]

What a very zen question! That being said, whenever I read "capital," I picture piles of dollar notes, but capital refers to any factor in production that isn't wanted for itself, but for its ability to be invested in production. Human labor, for example, can be considered a kind of capital. As for whether capitalists control capital or the other way around, capitalists control capital in the sense that they own it and direct its investment. In a poetic sense, you might say capital controls capitalists and, really, that isn't terribly far off: the capitalist class will naturally act in the interests of capital.

[Blanquist]

What a very zen question! That being said, whenever I read "capital," I picture piles of dollar notes, but capital refers to any factor in production that isn't wanted for itself, but for its ability to be invested in production. Human labor, for example, can be considered a kind of capital. As for whether capitalists control capital or the other way around, capitalists control capital in the sense that they own it and direct its investment. In a poetic sense, you might say capital controls capitalists and, really, that isn't terribly far off: the capitalist class will naturally act in the interests of capital.

Is surplus value capital? Is the part that isn't surplus value not capital?

I just can't grasp this 'capital' that we can never see and comes from unpaid labour hours.

And the whole 'fictitious capital', so stock market money isn't real capital?

But there's more 'fictitious capital' than real capital? Is that why austerity is being implemented?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Capital is a process, tied with numerous forms of commodity trade:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodity_(Marxism)#Forms_of_commodity_trade

[Koba Junior]

Is surplus value capital? Is the part that isn't surplus value not capital?

I just can't grasp this 'capital' that we can never see and comes from unpaid labour hours.

And the whole 'fictitious capital', so stock market money isn't real capital?

But there's more 'fictitious capital' than real capital? Is that why austerity is being implemented?

Capital is an abstract concept. It doesn't really "look like" anything, necessarily. It's whatever is invested into production.

[citizen of industry]

Capital is an abstract concept. It doesn't really "look like" anything, necessarily. It's whatever is invested into production.

And therefore, theoretically social capital could be measured. It has a value, price etc. Productive capital, circulating capital, and money capital. All the commodities(including raw materials), the machines, wages, loan capital, etc. So it isn't exactly abstract.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Capital is one factor of production, along with land, labour (and technology).

Capital is what is used to invest in machines, research, large projects, land and so on. Capital is accumulated (hence the term 'capital accumulation') by a greater and greater amount of surplus generated by both rising real prices (independent of inflation) and falling costs (generally, we are talking about a decline in real wages, and efficiencies made via technology, economies of scale etc.). Surplus, thus, is essentially the gap between what it costs to produce a good/make a service, and its price.

You don't need to think of capital as anything tangible (but equally it is NOT abstract), for whilst capital is technically investible currency, we do not talk of capital when we describe £5 or £10 or whatever. Capital, as a concept, can be thought of as intangible but NOT abstract. It has a very real definition as a factor of production, an input into the process and as the accumulation of surplus over a period, ready to be invested/re-invested back into the production process.

[Revolutionair]

Human labor, for example, can be considered a kind of capital.

This is incorrect.

For production you need all factors of production: labor, means of production (machines, factories, etc.), and resources. In a capitalist society, the means of production take the form of a tradable 'capital'. In other modes of production, the tradability of capital wasn't dominant or not present at all. For instance in feudalism, land was not traded. Land belonged to the feudal lords that allowed peasants to farm on it.

So while capital is a factor of production like labor, they are different factors of production and do not overlap.


Capital is an abstract concept. It doesn't really "look like" anything, necessarily. It's whatever is invested into production.

How are machinery and factories abstract? They are as real as something can be. I'd guess that most of us have to spend the majority of their lives looking at and operating capital.

[Koba Junior]

How are machinery and factories abstract? They are as real as something can be. I'd guess that most of us have to spend the majority of their lives looking at and operating capital.

But capital isn't just one thing, one single substance. It refers to a wide variety of things. These things may be tangible, but their role in production is what defines them as capital, and you can't hold a role. This is what I had meant, anyway.

[Tim Cornelis]

Capital of Zimbabwe:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Harare_night.jpg

Capital of the Netherlands:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/6a/Sights_in_Amsterdam2.jpg

As you can see, it depends.

[Mass Grave Aesthetics]

I´ve found these two articles very useful:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1953/horsepower.htm
http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1951/doctrine.htm

And I´d argue as Bordiga does that capital has it´s own workings independent of individual will. The capitalist person (or bourgeois) acts according to capitals need for accumulation and expansion, whatever his rationale might be.

[u.s.red]

Here is Marx on capital:

"The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as “an immense accumulation of commodities,”[1] its unit being a single commodity.

Capital, Vol I, Chapter One, first sentence.

[28350]

"self-valorizing surplus-value"

[Krano]

http://img42.imageshack.us/img42/2401/mrburnsb.gif

[Rafiq]

Capital, as another pointed out, is indeed a process and not a thing.

I'd also like to say that those who say it is a factor in production, are adhering to Bourgeois economics. It is not a "Factor" in the all so "harmonious and natural" process of production, but the base of production, the nucleus of it.

But Capital, in short, can be summed up simply as this: Dead Labor.

A machine, which was the product of one's labor, produces commodities, and must constantly rely on more and more labor in order to sustain itself.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Capital, as another pointed out, is indeed a process and not a thing.

I'd also like to say that those who say it is a factor in production, are adhering to Bourgeois economics. It is not a "Factor" in the all so "harmonious and natural" process of production, but the base of production, the nucleus of it.

But Capital, in short, can be summed up simply as this: Dead Labor.

A machine, which was the product of one's labor, produces commodities, and must constantly rely on more and more labor in order to sustain itself.

You're arguing over semantics here. Presumably, some of us will use the same words as the bourgeois economists because some of us study their courses. It's just a colloquealism (sp?).

It is of course the base of production, but it is also "a" factor because, very simply, without land there would be no production, without labour there would be no production, and without technology there would be no advance in production. It is not bourgeois at all to talk of capital as being a factor of production.

[OHumanista]

Capital is the God of capitalists.
They sacrifice countless workers in it's name and are blessed with the holy profit. The way to become one with Capital (a capitalist) is through private ownership of the means of production.:D

Now on a more serious note...the people above have already answered. It's a process.

[Ravachol]

https://03varvara.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/00-unknown-artist-the-golden-idol-of-the-lord-of-world-capitalism-1918-20.jpg?w=400&h=500