My capital manifesto

Over the course of this quarter I’ve learned about the theory behind various forms of capital - financial, social, human, natural, etc. And I realized that not only do we interact with capital everyday, but we also create capital, we use capital, and in some ways we are capital. It sounds eerie and reductionist at first, but I wonder if there isn’t some way to feel ownership (pun intended) over the construct of capital. How can we make it ours and make it work for the communities and environment we care about?

Traditional economics speaks to the ways in which capital does “work”. As Investopedia explains, “Capital...is used to generate wealth through investment...Capital itself does not exist until it is produced. Then, to create wealth, capital must be combined with labor, the work of individuals who exchange their time and skills for money… [and] Capital has value because of property rights.”

So the traditional definition of capital is linked to wealth creation. It must be created, and owned. How can we re-imagine wealth, creation and ownership then?

Wealth - It is excess that you don’t use immediately, resources that we can stored or saved. Depending on who you are talking to, wealth is manifested in the form of money, possessions, knowledge. Yet, interestingly it can be used to described people and things. It is more than possession it can also be a descriptor: a wealthy family, city, and nation.

Creation - Bringing something new into existence. But is anything new ever really “created”, or is it just repurposed, a shifting of ideas, atoms, and elements. Charles Eisenstein certainly feels that most things that are sold was once an object and services that humans provided for themselves and their community without exchanging money for it.

Ownership - It is to possess, rule, control. Those words are very different from service or stewardship, yet all three can look the same in action. I own my dog, but that just means that I have to pick up his poop and make sure that he doesn’t get hurt or hurt other. In fact, it seems that he controls me.

Now, just for fun, with this new look at wealth, creation, and ownership let’s look at what financial, social, human, and natural capital we interact with, use, live and create on a daily basis. There is the obvious physical environment that surrounds us. Each building serves use-value and transaction-value. It is owned by someone and created by someone. It is probably making wealth for someone (the bank, the landlord) as well. What about the people walking around and working? They all have capital, which is to say knowledge and skill that they own, created, and are driving wealth from (or at least we hope there is an excess of resources taking place). In fact, I am using mental capital right now. I am building my writing skills, and deepening my understanding of economics. I own these new skills and I hope to profit off of them in the near future.  What about trees and parks. They create wealth because they improve quality of life (who doesn’t like excess quality of life?). They are “owned” by taxpayers and are created by nature and human intervention.

It seems that with a broad sense of capital, wealth creation, and ownership we can apply the label capital to almost everything we come in contact with.

Yes, the world is unjust. Yes, there are many institutional, systemic, and structural barriers that keep people from achieving the mythical “American Dream”. But, we all have some capital.

How are you going to use your’s?