[nstj]

> Capital isn't an object, it's a belief system, with a strong faith-based component. So in a purely rational sense it's impossible to "make capital available."

If I have a bunch of gold in a safe, then that's very much an object. If I decide you have a good project and could use that gold to finance that project, then I can "make capital available" to you.

[hypron]

Only because we put a value on gold.

[nstj]

Sure, but replace the term "gold" above with lumber/steel/concrete/apartment buildings/oil/prepaid employees/automobiles/etc.

If I have a bunch of stuff which I can loan to someone else then I have "capital". That "capital" can just as easily be physical as it can be financial.

edit: placed "gold" in quotes.

[rosser]

No, "capital" is the value we attach to the object; it's the belief, itself. The object is just an object.

[rukittenme]

Capital has universal value. The value of food is the preservation of life. That has value. That is objective reality for all life on Earth. If an animal can store food (read capital) then it improves it survivability.

[the8472]

> The value of food is the preservation of life.

Once basic needs are satisfied you cannot double-satisfy them. Paying for twice the amount of food does not make you live twice as long. So that's a fixed demand, while luxury goods are unbounded in their potential costs.

If you subtracted all that value spent on basic needs there there still would be a lot of capital flowing around.

I think the ancestor comment is arguing that there basically are two separate value circulations. One to distribute and allocate the essentials and the rest for social-value-signalling. Maybe that's also something UBI gets wrong. That we actually would need two currencies.

Post-scarcity scifi settings often feature something like that

    a) all the basic stuff including housing is essentially given away for free
    b) you get a fixed amount of luxury resource allocations on top of that
    c) you can gain additional ones via some kind of work
    d) they can be traded if others find whatever you're doing valuable.
         so you don't have to work for the government or megacorp.

[rukittenme]

> Once basic needs are satisfied you cannot double-satisfy them.

Yes you can, food can be stored! At a later date less food can be consumed with no work was needed to harvest it.

> Paying for twice the amount of food does not make you live twice as long.

No but using your acquired food (read capital) to trade for medical supplies will increase your longevity. And it will increases the doctor's because he gets to eat!

> If you subtracted all that value spent on basic needs there there still would be a lot of capital flowing around.

Yes and isn't it wonderful? Its what allows things like food stamps and vacations to exist. Excess capital allows things like scientific research to occur.

> ...the rest for social-value-signalling.

That's a pretty pessimistic view of wealth.

---

I think I've been pretty realistic in my assessments of capital and its uses. But now, I'm going to enter territory where I'm wildly speculating.

I don't believe post-scarcity can exist or should exist. I don't believe it can exist for two reasons:

1). There simply is not an infinite amount of energy and matter (but there may be enough that it doesn't matter that its finite). 2). Even if there is enough resources, time will always be the limiting factor. Time contributes to scarcity the same way money does.

I don't believe it should exist because I believe that is the end of human progress. Scarcity, whether its a desire to own an iPhone or to acquire knowledge of quantum gravity, motivates humans to achieve.

[metaphorm]

> Once basic needs are satisfied you cannot double-satisfy them

why is there a boundary to surplus essentials? if you store enough essentials for one person, then storing more of them means you're increasing the number of people (or amount of time) you're storing essentials for.

[nstj]

That sounds like your opinion, so I can't say that it's "wrong", but according to the dictionary "capital" is defined as follows[0]:

> wealth in the form of money or other assets owned by a person or organization or available or contributed for a particular purpose such as starting a company or investing.

Capital is just wealth in some form which is available for investing. You don't have to ascribe a dollar value to tree trunks to say they could be used to build houses. That's capital.

[0]: https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&e...

[bbcbasic]

(General reply to sister comments)

Sounds to me like there some cross purpose debating going on here.

To me it is simple. If by "Capital" you mean "money" then of course it has no intrinsic value, it is based on faith. Zimbabwe's currency is an obvious example of that.

If we are talking about other stuff that is useful to our lives, then the value is relative to the beholder and their situation. Water is more valuable than gold from a survival point of view, but not from a $ point of view.

[nstj]

You're spot on, and this is a bit of an issue - there are a huge number of cross purposes in economic definitions, and the word "capital" is one of them.

My personal take on the word (informed by the dictionary source I gave above and a rather pragmatic approach to economics) is that "capital is stuff". Typically this "stuff" is in the form of either physical goods (lumber, food, concrete, gold, etc) and services (and I know services can't really be 'physical' but I can have a reasonable claim on the labour of someone through prepayment of salary, or a labour contract, etc); or financial assets (such as bank balances, stocks, bonds, etc).

Ultimately though, the "financial capital" is just a slightly divorced claim on the physical capital, and all anyone really cares about is the real stuff which they can eat or build with or develop, etc. You might have a big bank balance, but all you really care about is what you can ultimately cash it in for.

[stale2002]

Ok, how about this. I have a bunch steel in by vault. Steel is worth something and can be used to build things. I loan you this steel in order to build a factory (perhaps even a steel mill!), on the hope that your project will be successful and you will pay me back even more steel.

[ars]

> Steel is worth something

No it's not. It's just a lump of metal that sits there.

> and can be used to build things.

Only if I want things. And I only want things if I value them, and I value things, just because, there is no fundamental value to things, only what value we believe there is.

[stale2002]

How about food? Is that basic enough for you? I lend a hunter food so that he can take that temporary supply of food to eat while he is hunting and then potentially bring back more food.

[ars]

Same thing. That only works if the hunter values food. If he has enough (or knows how to get enough), he might not value food.

At the end of the day things have value only because people want them and give them value.

What value do you give air? It's absolutely essential to life after all! But since you have as much as you could use you don't value having more.

[adwn]

> Same thing. That only works if the hunter values food. If he has enough (or knows how to get enough), he might not value food.

I think you're confounding value and marginal value.

[metaphorm]

> No it's not. It's just a lump of metal that sits there.

are you trying to argue the reduction ad absurdum? obviously steel is a construction/fabrication material with a very large number of practical uses.

[metaphorm]

the gold is an object. it's perceived value is what makes it capital. that's a belief system.