Economics without Capital

Abstract

If capital’s role in economies has been substantially reduced, can its long-troubling presence in economics fade into the background? That would certainly make life easier for many practitioners and students of the subject, for whom defining capital has been an insoluble and infuriating task for several generations. It is entirely possible that this entire book was encapsulated in a single sentence, 70 years ago, by arguably the greatest of all capital theorists: ‘“Capital” is not what capital is called, it is what its name is called’ (Robinson 1954: 83). But as some much longer books have had to be written to explain this sentence — and agreement has still not been reached — dispensing with the term and the concept might pay dividends all round.