Fix, ‘The Ritual of Capitalization’
September 22, 2021
Abstract
For more than a century, political economists have sought to understand the nature of capital. The prevailing wisdom is that there must be something ‘real’ — some productive capacity — that underpins capitalized values. This thinking, I argue, is a mistake. Building on Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler’s theory of capital as power, I argue that capitalization is an ideology. It is a quantitative ritual for converting earnings into present value. Although the ritual is arbitrary, it gives rise to astonishing empirical regularities, reviewed here.
Citation
The Ritual of Capitalization
Fix, Blair. (2021). Real-world Economics Review. Issue 97. September. pp 78-95.