In economics, capital goods or capital are "those durable produced goods that are in turn used as productive inputs for further production" of goods and services. A typical example is the machinery used in a factory. At the macroeconomic level, "the nation's capital stock includes buildings, equipment, software, and inventories during a given year."
Capital is a broad economic concept representing produced assets used as inputs for further production or generating income.
In political philosophy, the means of production refers to the generally necessary assets and resources that enable a society to engage in production. While the exact resources encompassed in the term may vary, it is widely agreed to include the classical factors of production (land, labour, and capital) as well as the general infrastructure and capital goods necessary to reproduce stable levels of productivity. It can also be used as an abbreviation of the "means of production and distribution" which additionally includes the logistical distribution and delivery of products, generally through distributors; or as an abbreviation of the "means of production, distribution, and exchange" which further includes the exchange of distributed products, generally to consumers.
The concept of "Means of Production" is used by researchers in various fields of study — including politics, economics, and sociology — to discuss, broadly, the relationship between anything that can have productive use, its ownership, and the constituent social parts needed to produce it.
Socialist economics comprises the economic theories, practices and norms of hypothetical and existing socialist economic systems. A socialist economic system is characterized by social ownership and operation of the means of production that may take the form of autonomous cooperatives or direct public ownership wherein production is carried out directly for use rather than for profit. Socialist systems that utilize markets for allocating capital goods and factors of production among economic units are designated market socialism. When planning is utilized, the economic system is designated as a socialist planned economy. Non-market forms of socialism usually include a system of accounting based on calculation-in-kind to value resources and goods.
Socialist economics has been associated with different schools of economic thought. Marxian economics provided a foundation for socialism based on analysis of capitalism while neoclassical economics and evolutionary economics provided comprehensive models of socialism. During the 20th century, proposals and models for both socialist planned and market economies were based heavily on neoclassical economics or a synthesis of neoclassical economics with Marxian or institutional economics.
Infrastructure (also known as "capital goods", or "fixed capital") is a platform for governance, commerce, and economic growth and is "a lifeline for modern societies". It is the hallmark of economic development.
It has been characterized as the mechanism that delivers the "..fundamental needs of society: food, water, energy, shelter, governance ... without infrastructure, societies disintegrate and people die." Adam Smith argued that fixed asset spending was the "third rationale for the state, behind the provision of defense and justice." Societies enjoy the use of "...highway, waterway, air, and rail systems that have allowed the unparalleled mobility of people and goods. Water-borne diseases are virtually nonexistent because of water and wastewater treatment, distribution, and collection systems. In addition, telecommunications and power systems have enabled our economic growth."
Hard infrastructure, also known as tangible or built infrastructure, is the physical infrastructure of roads, bridges, tunnels, railways, airports, ports, and harbors, among others, as opposed to the soft infrastructure or "intangible infrastructure of human capital in the form of education, research, health and social services and "institutional infrastructure" in the form of legal, economic and social systems.
This article delineates both the capital goods, or fixed assets, and the control systems, software required to operate, manage and monitor the systems, as well as any accessory buildings - such as airports, plants, or vehicles that are an essential part of the system. Also included are fleets of vehicles operating according to schedules such as public transit buses and garbage collection, as well as basic energy or communications facilities that are not usually part of a physical network, such as oil refineries, radio, and television broadcasting facilities.
The economic history of Brazil covers various economic events and traces the changes in the Brazilian economy over the course of the history of Brazil. Portugal, which first colonized the area in the 16th century, enforced a colonial pact with Brazil, an imperial mercantile policy, which drove development for the subsequent three centuries. Independence was achieved in 1822. Slavery was fully abolished in 1888. Important structural transformations began in the 1930s, when important steps were taken to change Brazil into a modern, industrialized economy.
A socioeconomic transformation took place rapidly after World War II. In the 1940s, only 31.3% of Brazil's 41.2 million inhabitants resided in towns and cities; by 1991, of the country's 146.9 million inhabitants 75.5% lived in cities, and Brazil had two of the world's largest metropolitan centers: São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. The share of the primary sector in the gross national product declined from 28% in 1947 to 11% in 1992. In the same 1947–92 period, the contribution of industry to GNP increased from less than 20–39%. The industrial sector produces a wide range of products for the domestic market and for export, including consumer goods, intermediate goods, and capital goods.
Eugen Böhm Ritter von Bawerk (short form: Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, Austrian German: [fɔn bøːm ˈbaːvɛrk]; born Eugen Böhm, 12 February 1851 – 27 August 1914) was an Austrian-school intellectual and political economist who served intermittently as the Minister of Finance of Austria between 1895 and 1904. Böhm-Bawerk is noted for the theory of Roundaboutness, which emphasizes the time intensity, not only capital intensity, of investments in capital goods to increase productivity. He advanced an interest rate theory centered on time preference. He also wrote an extensive critique of Marxism and Marx's labor theory of value.