ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the national accounts, be based upon on a quadruple accounting balance sheet representation of ‘fixed capital’ or the value of all kinds of items used by households, the government, companies and non-profits. Economists have grappled with the question why a particular item is considered to be ‘fixed capital’ or not. Capital is a social relation of production. Owning fixed capital endows people and organizations with ownership rights and to flows of income connected to letting or using it. Such rights as a rule legally codified, which makes capital a social and political and not just an economic variable. The total balance sheet capital-value of slaves was over 50 percent of the total value of fixed capital – or more than the value of all land, houses and other kinds of fixed capital combined. The chapter describes gross fixed capital: ownership titles of machinery, buildings, sub-soil gas and oil, patents and the like.
