&gt;Capital is commonly (and correctly) viewed as a &quot;store of wealth&quot;, or as &quot;the crystallisation of labour-time&quot;<p>Sorry, but what? I&#x27;m guessing that you don&#x27;t even really believe this and that you don&#x27;t even know what those phrases are supposed to mean. Why else would you put them in quotes -- twice?<p>I can only guess that this is supposed to mean that capital somehow binds up prior effort into a claim on (others?) future effort?<p>That is a fiction (likely told to you by someone with &quot;capital&quot;). It&#x27;s a fine theory, but it is only that. There is no physicality to capital in your definition. It is purely a social construct.<p>A more traditional definition of capital is that it refers to a physical machine which substitutes labor.