ABSTRACT
The terms 'capital', 'capitalist' and 'capitalism' were coined many centuries ago. Outside Western Europe, the word 'capital' appeared in Ecloga, the compilation of laws formulated during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Leo III, 717–741. Later, the word 'capital' appeared in the works of the Muslim jurist al-Shafi'i in the year 820. Marx's theory of capitalism as a social system is, of course, more complex and more often expounded than the definitions just mentioned. The prevalence of wage labour differentiates capitalism from previous social systems. In Marx's view, the place of capital is occupied by both the money capitalist and the functioning capitalist. The pure form of legal ownership over capital is financial security, corresponding, that is, to "imaginary money wealth". The political and ideological power of the capitalist state must be thus approached in terms of the objective interests of the capitalist class.
