Actually, in the note below, Mr. Miller is arguing with Abe Lincoln, not with Jesus, but actually capital existed before industrialization. I'll discount the land-and-treasure.... Actually, in the note below, Mr. Miller is arguing with Abe Lincoln, not with Jesus, but actually capital existed before industrialization. I'll discount the land-and-treasure capital of the feudalists--which was still based on the labor of serfs and soldiers, respectively, but rarely functioned as capital in that it was kept for personal use rather than invested in increased production. Capital accumulation in the modern sense began with the organization of shipping companies, primarily in England, and the reinvestment of gains produced by the labor of Hindu farmers and British seamen in more ships, more crews, and more colonial adventures. I believe it may have marked the first times shares were sold, etc. It was this wealth (though not only this wealth) that helped make industrialization possible. (The Enclosure Acts also created great wealth for the well-connected, while at the same time ensuring a pool of cheap labor for the coming industrialization by removing access to wealth for the majority of England's folks.)

The ships' crews could have operated economically, though at a lower level, without the investors; the investors could have done nothing without the crews. (Unless they had deigned to get their hands dirty, of course.)

Farm animals produced huge capital even up to a few years ago even in the US, before the petroleum subdsidy (supported in part by investment in the weapons industry) replaced their labor input with a now obviously short-term shift to a dinosaur-based economy. The animals didn't get much benefit from it (in a classic illustration of Marx's surplus value theory, one of the few things he got right), but they helped create capital. Though most of it went to the railroad companies till recently, farmers and horses created it. (Transport prices were notoriously unfair during the expansion of Great Plains farming, marked up far beyond reason.)

Production and service are the foundations of any economy that serves real life. Capital flows facilitate the functioning of an economy when they are managed honestly. But capital is the grease; it's not the machine. And labor is the fuel. We have forgotten that.