Accumulation of capital

Saving of wealth
Uninvested wealth
Misinvestment of surplus capital

Nature

The accumulation of capital is the result of saving. This does not necessarily imply abstinence, privation or sacrifice. Saving on the part of the capitalist involves no personal abstinence from immediate consumption, no sacrifice of present gratifications. His immediate expenditure is limited only by his tastes. Often the pleasure of accumulation is greater than that of careless extravagance, and at times the dominant idea is the increase of wealth for the sake of power. In the case of smaller incomes, the subordination of present to future utility often involves real sacrifice, forbearance, prudence and forethought. But even here, there is often the real opportunity to either consume less or produce more. There is also the real possibility that the means are mistaken for the end, and that the mere accumulation of wealth become the reason for life, or that the habit of accumulating, acquired in a time of need, maintains its sway when the need has passed. The process of accumulating money can become addictive. People caught up in this process use it to avoid dealing with being human and confronting human feelings. Often they do not care about money in and of itself; what drives them is the series of actions and interactions involved in accumulating it. The power to save and the will to save may be used by those who have the ability to create inequitable distribution of wealth in which, at its most sordid, the living capital (people's work and conditions and the earth's natural resources) is sacrificed to the dead (in the form of impermanent structures and inherited accumulated wealth).

Background

The accumulation of capital emerged as a global concern during the Industrial Revolution, when unprecedented wealth concentration and investment patterns began reshaping societies. By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, economists and social theorists, notably Karl Marx, highlighted its role in exacerbating social inequalities and economic instability. Over time, international institutions and scholars increasingly scrutinized capital accumulation’s impact on global development, financial crises, and persistent disparities between and within nations.

Incidence

The accumulation of capital has reached unprecedented levels globally, with a small percentage of individuals and corporations controlling a disproportionate share of wealth. According to the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2023, the richest 1% now own nearly half of the world’s total wealth, exacerbating economic inequality and limiting opportunities for broad-based development. This concentration of capital influences political power, resource allocation, and social mobility on a worldwide scale.
In 2022, Oxfam reported that in the United States, the combined wealth of the five richest individuals increased by over $400 billion during the COVID-19 pandemic, while millions faced unemployment and financial hardship.

Claim

The growth of capital is similar in many respects to the growth of population. Each is kept in existence, and increases from age to age, not by preservation but by perpetual consumption and reproduction. It is only the value of the capital that remains and grows; the things themselves are ever changing. The capital of a country should be as well invested in the physical, mental, and moral training of its inhabitants as in the accumulation of dead material wealth in the shape of machinery, buildings and the like.

Property, that is, "capital," has undoubtedly long been able to appropriate too much to itself. Whatever was produced, whatever returns accrued, capital claimed for itself, hardly leaving to the worker enough to restore and renew his strength. For the doctrine was preached that all accumulation of capital falls by an absolutely insuperable economic law to the rich, and that by the same law the workers are given over and bound to perpetual want, to the scantiest of livelihoods. (Papal Encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno, 15 May 1931).

Counter-claim

To say that capital is the result of accumulation does not mean that it is not consumed. Saving is not necessarily hoarding. All capital is eventually consumed. It fulfills its primary function – the satisfaction of future needs – only in being consumed; but it may not be immediately consumed by the person who saves it. In general, saving is done through the banking system, which increases national industry, hence the productive power and the consuming power of the society.