Capital is divided into (1) material capital, and (2) human capital. Unlike material capital,
human capital cannot be bought or sold, except in the case of slavery, according to current
economic theory. Human capital is that body of knowledge that contributes know-how to
productive activity.  One of the big problems in these United States is our inadequate and
insufficient investment in human capital. (You may wish to refer to research that was
released in March, 1989 by the House Select Committee on Children, Youth, and Families.
Nothing has changed for the better since 1989 in the United States. There are too many
children in the United States who live in poverty.)

Be that as it may, general education and vocational training are the kinds of investment
in human capital which the United States ought to do more of, and ought to do better.
The cost of creating human capital mostly falls on individuals and families, or on
charitable institutions. The modern liberal state can and should shoulder the costs of
creating human capital, and tax-paying could include this cost, so that every tax-payer
bears the burden of human capital formation, so that the United States can compete
fairly and effectively with the other nations. (When I talk about the state investing in
human capital creation, and about tax-paying citizens, I'm talking about what I believe
should be done in the present context of really-existing capitalism and statism -- i.e.,
the capitalist welfare-state. I do not advocate welfare-state capitalism. I tend to see
the existing welfare-state as a material preparation for socialism, or as a means to
avoid/evade socialism, but not as socialism itself. I view social-liberal policies as
bringing us to the threshold of socialism, but not as having brought us to socialism as
such.  If and when we have finally achieved genuine and simple democratic socialism,
then we will have surpassed welfare-state capitalism, and reached what could be called
a welfare-society -- i.e., socialism.  When the welfare-state withers away, what will be
left remaining will be a welfare-society, a good society that cares about the success and
happiness of every person, about the prosperity and health of every individual. I look at a
libertarian and anarchist commonwealth as a welfare-community.)

To get back to the topic, as I understand current economic doctrine, human capital is a
subdivision of labor, which is a factor of production, as are capital, land and enterprise.
But, I've also noticed that some economic theorists place human capital as a subdivision
of capital, a factor of production, as are labor, land and enterprise.  I've even noticed a
kind of grouping that looks like this: labor is to human capital as land is to mineral
resources.





Physical capital is inanimate, lifeless; but human capital is animate.





The social means of production ought not to be private property. A solitary means of
production can be personal property. I need a pair of shoes, and so this good ought to
be a personal possession for personal utility. But, I do not need a shoe-factory; and,
because a factory is an associated means of production, I ought not own a factory as
a personal possession. I did not construct the factory by my own solitary labor; and,
I do not operate the factory machines alone, or perform solitary labor in the factory.
Because it takes cooperative and associated labor to build and to work a factory, for
this reason, a factory ought to be the collective property of the associated workers.





Undeveloped land is not a product of human labor.  Capital is a product of human labor.
Land is one of the factors of production, but so is capital, labor, and enterprise. But, land
and capital are analytically separated in organized and systematic economic theory.





Why ought/ought not those who own the social means of production (the capitalists)
enjoy a moral and legal right to own the means of associated production (capital)?

Is it morally and legally right that those who own the large-scale means of mass
production (capital) also directly own all the fruits of collective production?  The
producers indirectly come to own what they produce, because their wages are paid
to the producers by the employer class, i.e., by the class of proprietors.  The wages
are paid to employees from the wage fund, which is the private property of the
employer.  Wage-workers do not directly possess what they produce.  





Land and capital, if used for the purpose of associated production of goods for social
consumption and for public utility, ought to be community property, rather than private
property.





A free market structure in a socialist context will be wholly unlike the free market system
in a capitalist context. And, since people associate the free market with all the added
accouterments and other fixtures of capitalism, it is best to just simply not use the noun
free markets to describe a free exchange arrangement within a democratic-socialist
political-economy.





Socialism is the free exchange of labor, and of material and cultural goods. A free market
in labor implies that there are capitalist proprietors employing wage labor for the purpose
of producing surplus value and private profits, which are the property of the employer class
appropriated from the class of wage-employees. Just as the capitalist state takes value
from citizens in the form of taxes, so also the capitalist class takes value from producers
in the form of private profit. As long as there is capitalism, there will be profits; and as long
as there is statism, there will be taxes.  Both profits and taxes are an expropriation of value,
with profits being the appropriation of value created by workers, and with taxes being the
appropriation of pecuniary value from citizens. The market is not an isolated phenomenon;
it is a category within capitalism, it is a constituent component of capitalism, it is a capitalist
institution in that capitalism is an organized political-economic system of generalized
commodity production and exchange for the ultimate and objective purpose of private profit
production.





One aspect of capitalism is that shareholders do not have equal ownership or equal
control. There are majority shareholders, and there are minority shareholders. There
are voting shares, and there are non-voting shares. In socialism, there would be no
division created such that some would have majority shares, while others would have
minority shares. All the shareholders will possess equal shares; and all the shareholders
will possess an equal vote as fellow and equal peers. In other words, one person, one
vote.

In a socialist system of syndicalism, only the workers can be shareholders where they
work. Shares cannot be bought or sold, and cannot be owned by a class of private
property owners, who do not derive an income from doing value-creating labor, but rather
derive an income from the value-creating labor of other people.





"Where every man in a State has a vote, brutal laws are impossible."
-- Samuel Langhorne Clemens ("Mark Twain")