Chapter 4

THE ERRORS OF MARX, CONTINUED. CAPITAL AS THE IMPLEMENT OF ABILITY

Two kinds of human effort being thus involved in modern production, it is necessary for all purposes of intelligible discussion to distinguish them by different names.

The word "labour" being appropriated by common custom to the manual task-work of the majority, some other technical word must be found to designate the directive faculties as applied to productive industry. The word here chosen, in default of a better, is "ability."

Ability, then, being the faculty which directs labour, by what means does it give effect to its directions?

It gives effect to its directions by means of its control of capital, in the form of wage-capital.

Ability, using wage-capital as its implement of direction, gives rise to fixed capital, in the form of the elaborate implements of modern production, which are the material embodiments of the knowledge, ingenuity, and energy of the highest minds.