Strigl builds his theory of the macroeconomy on an
original account of the part played by different forms of capital.
In particular, he stresses the fundamental role that consumer
goods, or means of subsistence, play in connection with the fact
that production takes time. When consumer goods are used to
sustain laborers engaged in time-consuming roundabout production processes, they are used as “free capital.” Since without sustenance for laborers no such roundabout production processes can be started at all, consumer-goods-used-as-capital
are the most fundamental or “originary form” of capital.
This fundamental insight, that productively-used consumer
goods are originary capital, had already been expressed in Jevons's wage-fund theory of capital, and it is still common stock
in Austrian economics. However, no one has surpassed Strigl
in systematically analyzing the implications thereof, and in integrating these findings into a theory of the macroeconomy. His
legacy to present day capital theorists rests to a great extent
mainly on this contribution.
One important implication of this insight is that it is unwarranted to conceive of capital from a purely technological point of
view. Machines, buildings, etc.—that is, those capital goods most
readily identified with the notion of capital—are themselves
products of previous production processes which, ultimately,
make use of labor, land, and “productively-used” consumer
goods. Moreover, capital goods can only be used if corresponding
quantities of consumer goods are fed into the production process
to sustain the laborers who work with these capital goods. Using
capital goods in production processes and supporting these
processes with consumer goods are nothing but two aspects of “one and the same process.” In short, the quantities and
qualities of capital goods in use at any time depend ultimately on
what people choose to do with the consumer goods they control.
A man can choose to use all his consumer goods in “pure consumption” or to use a part of them (his “savings”) in “productive
consumption”; that is, he can use this part to sustain himself or
others while being engaged in a productive venture. Depending
on such choices, consumer goods become either pure consumer
goods or originary capital. Hence, whether one and the same physical object is capital depends ultimately on the choices of the
market participants; capital formation has a subjective basis.
—Jörg Guido Hülsmann, introduction to Capital and Production, by Richard von Strigl (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2000), xvii-xix.
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