Capital

In economics, capital is wealth, especially wealth used to start or maintain a business - the means of production. It is one of the three factors of production, which most modern analyses see as different forms or styles of capital in themselves, e.g. natural resources as natural capital, labor or human resources as human capital - often broken down further into its imitative, creative, and social components.

As infrastructural capital has declined in financial value relative to these, separate literatures have developed to describe natural capital and social capital. There is also a literature of intellectual capital that increasingly distinguishes rewards for imitative (patent), creative (copyright), and social trust (trademark) production as part of the ongoing debate on intellectual property law. The schema of Hubley, cited in Harding, "describes six 'styles' of capital:

Social capital is trust available to all members of a community (e.g. family, customer base)

Financial capital is liquidated as money for trade, and owned by legal entities.

Natural capital is inherent in ecologies and protected by communities to support life.

Individual capital is inherent in persons, protected by societies, trades labor for trust or money

Instructional capital is knowledge persons and communities and software executes to predict/create or avoid futures

Infrastructural capital is non-natural support systems (e.g. clothing, shelter, roads, PCs) that minimize need for new social trust, instruction, and natural resources."

also see capitalism

Also, the capital of a country is the city or town that contains the central government a country. A country may have more than one official capital at any given point in time It may be separate from the actual seat of government or move about seasonally. Different branches of government may be centered in different cities. See capital cities.

In architecture, the capital of a pillar or column is its top part. See capital (architecture).