Capital note

capital is a great mystery. Amazing how small a role it plays in the social sciences.

From "cap" head, and used in head of cattle in ancient times, that which can be got through breeding. Increase.

The issue of who owns it. Is not capital a product of a society?  The increasingly narrow ownership of capital is going to prove troublesome to technical implementations.

Feudal relations were maintained by tribute to the chief, which was in calves. Later these exchanges turned to rents, still paid in cattle, but then turned to money payments, which the farmers could not pay, having no part in the money economy, so they were foreclosed off the land ("clearances" or "enclosures"). Thus Capitalism (head of cattle) was transformed to money, and onward to finance…