What is "capital"?
"Capital" is only another word for stores. Adam Smith calls capital "stock." Capital is any tools, machinery, or other stores used in producing wealth. Capital is any food, fuel, shelter, clothing supplied to those engaged in producing wealth.
The hunter, before he can shoot game, needs weapons. His weapons are "capital." The farmer has to wait for his wheat and potatoes to ripen before he can use them as food. The stock of food and the tools he uses to produce the wheat or potatoes, and to live on while they ripen, are "capital."
Robinson Crusoe's capital was the arms, food, and tools he saved from the wreck. On these he lived until he had planted corn, and tamed goats and built a hut, and made skin clothing and vessels of wood and clay.
Capital, then, is stores. Now, where do the stores come from? Stores are wealth. Stores, whether they be food or tools, come from the land, and are made or produced by human labour.
There is not an atom of capital in the world that has not been produced by labour.
Every spade, every plough, every hammer, every loom, every cart, barrow, loaf, bottle, ham, haddock, pot of tea, barrel of ale, pair of boots, gold or silver coin, railway sleeper or rail, boat, road, canal, every kind of tools and stores has been produced by labour from the land.
It is evident, then, that if there were no labour there would be no capital. Labour is before capital, for labour makes capital.
Now, what folly it is to say that capital produces wealth. Capital is used by labour in the production of wealth, but capital itself is incapable of motion and can produce nothing.
A spade is "capital." Is it true, then, to say that it is not the navvy but the spade that makes the trench?