Thank you. I don't think I was being careful in my phrasing. By capital, I'm referring to the actual machinery and so forth used for production. Also, I expanded on that idea (as I noted) by including transportation, considering transportation to be, broadly speaking, involved with production and contributing to its cost.
But, as your question points out, I'm not really talking about destruction so much as I am about capital lying fallow for an extended period, and the chain of production—which endeavors to work as a well-oiled machine—being disrupted. My central point is that our ability to produce was greatly curtailed, resulting in less goods and services available.
Finally, I'm not quite sure what you mean by "who" and "why." I'm not pushing some kind of conspiracy theory. I'm just making observations of what has happened.
So by capital destruction you're referring to shutting down large sectors of the economy due to the coronavirus? Or was this already taking place before 2020?
I didn't think you were referring to a conspiracy. I just didn't know what you meant, since if you have capital, it's not really rational to destroy it
Right. But, more than that, I'm talking about the fallout of shutting things down—of breaking the chain of production—and then the difficulty of starting things up again.
I was horrified when things got shut down. Even when I originally bought into "two weeks to slow the spread" and believed it was only going to be for two weeks, I was concerned that a global, advanced division-of-labor economy cannot be switched on and off like a lightbulb.
Capital destruction doesn't have to be intentional. Hurricanes, fires, floods, wars, and pandemics can destroy capital. A bunch of chickens being killed due to bird flu is an example of capital destruction. Your house being destroyed due to a flood is capital destruction. Bananas rotting in a warehouse because the truck driver decided to take a vacation day is capital destruction.
Of course, arson and war can also destroy capital, and those are intentional. Policy can also destroy capital; e.g., a tariff that decreases international trade reduces the value of shipping containers; that destroys capital even if the shipping containers still get used (at a lower rate).
Rant:
No one cares about pushing around definitions of words; what they want to know is why they have to pay more for stuff! For this reason, the Austrian definition of inflation is kind of idiotic and imo often used in bad faith.
Why? Because most people understand inflation to mean "things are getting more expensive". That's the normal definition not only in mainstream economics but also in the lay vernacular.
So then an Austrian tells you that "inflation is monetary" and you infer that "the reason for increasing prices must be money printing". But that's an errant deduction! The Austrian is simply axiomatically defining a term in a non-standard way. In particular: the "inflation is monetary" is literally just choosing a weird way to define inflation, NOT making an actual empirical claim about the reason that e.g. egg prices have increased!
If you accept the definitional slight of hand and don't realize the silly game of axioms you've been recruited into, then you conclude that money printing is always the reason for increasing prices, even though not even the most staunch Austrian has the balls to make such a wildly broad claim ("oh, no, those prices increased because of capital destruction, not inflation!").
So far we just have a silly confusion. The pernicious thing is that the conclusions that you draw due to this stupid definitional game happen to support the often entirely self-interested policy preferences of (usually wealthy, and in a particular way) Austrians.
To your parent post's credit, they explain what they mean when they say that inflation is monetary; ie, that you cannot conclude from their assertion that inflation is the reason that prices are increasing. But generally I find the game that gets played with the definition of inflation (it's always monetary!!1!) extremely aggravating, since literally everyone else in the conversation understands that inflation means a general increase in prices. It's the same sort of pernicious definition game that people play when they say that that US is a republic and not a democracy.
And, in fact, you'll find that most Austrians themselves don't even understand that "inflation is monetary" is just a definitional choice, not an actual empirical claim about why prices increase. Or, when they do, they will freely move between the two definitions in a way that is -- even if not in bad faith -- an actively misleading use of rhetoric.
But, as your question points out, I'm not really talking about destruction so much as I am about capital lying fallow for an extended period, and the chain of production—which endeavors to work as a well-oiled machine—being disrupted. My central point is that our ability to produce was greatly curtailed, resulting in less goods and services available.
Finally, I'm not quite sure what you mean by "who" and "why." I'm not pushing some kind of conspiracy theory. I'm just making observations of what has happened.