There are literally only two sources of wealth on the planet.
1. As a result of nature’s gifts (utilized for purpose)
2. As a result of work (utilized for a purpose)
From that, wealth is only useful for two things:
1. For current social well-being
2. For future social well-being
No wealth comes from capital. (Sorry to sound like Marx.)
Some (perhaps even a great deal of) wealth comes from the work of the choice of where to put capital to use.
No wealth comes from idleness (Sorry to sound like a rabid conservative). What people do with time that they are unemployed or unable, can be a contribution to society.
People are idle a lot. Leisure. Even working people are “idle” 60 hours of their weekly waking life.
In an average person’s life, they are idle (not contributing to economy) for the first 22 years of their life (college educated). A lot of expenditure for future contributing life (a form of human capital, in contrast to social[ly-owned] capital). They are idle 60 hours/week of their working life (reasonable). They are idle an average of 20 years of their retirement life.
So, in summary, between preparing for contributory life and relaxing after contributory life, most individuals are fully idle for half of it.
One definition of adult life is the transition from preparatory idleness to socially contributory. That is the liberal definition.
The conservative definition of adult life is the transition from others taking care of you, to you taking care of yourself, and to you caring for others.
If high unemployment is acceptable (the conservative view), that there is no moral social obligation or even social virtue (through any agency) to universal employment, then there will end up not being a path for the conservative virtue, the ability to universally take care of yourself and of others.
In Greenfield, we are in trouble. I’m in trouble. My neighbors are in trouble. We are eating our seed grain.
More work can be accomplished by machines. That’s where capital comes in. I can do taxes by hand with a paper and pencil and get one done in two hours, or I can save up to buy a computer and get six done in two hours.
“Work” in this story is your ability to transform energy into something other people want to buy. Sometimes the energy you are transforming are calories of energy you ate while you were studying so that you could solve difficult puzzles. Don’t negate the value of hard-thinking.
Hi Wendy.
It definitely makes sense to work efficiently and to use the most effective tools to do so. We all benefit from it.
By “work”, I don’t mean physical work. I mean human intentional effort, whether physical or mental.
There is a confusion about the two meanings of the word “capital”. A capital asset isn’t capital.
Its an asset, a tool, that is put to work, under some individual (or group’s) active control. The work done is the control of the asset for a purpose.
Capital/equity is something different, not even really a thing.
Even thinking of original at-risk capital as a thing is inaccurate. (Its an accounting entry. The asset is the cash or other asset contributed, that remains an asset.)
Capital is a mysterious shadow. A share of a phantom transformed into an asset (a share of stock, exchangable for other assets).