Sublime

Following Hernando de Soto, we see capital as “economic potential energy”; a stock of crystallized and stored time; the memory of experimentation and discovery; a tool allowing us to not need to work completely from scratch, and shared in a common language to spare us equally from isolation.

A closer look shows that the hierarchies are constructed on a “building block” principle: subsystems at each level of the hierarchy are constructed by combinations of small numbers of subsystems from the next lower level.

The first effect is a spatialized version of Adam Smith’s famous dictum that “the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market.”

Both are dynamic systems in which the selfish actions of countless individuals—whether they be cells or investors—lead to unpredictable consequences at the system level. In turn, these collective actions and consequences feed back to influence individual actions in endless cycles of adaptation and evolution.

Eroberung und Dominanz haben, oder aber weil sie von dem rein praktischen Wunsch geleitet sind, sich Zugang zu physischer Belohnung, Sicherheit oder Fortpflanzungserfolg zu verschaffen. Groos’ Befunde – die seither über hundert Jahre lang durch experimentelle Indizien bestätigt wurden –

For centuries, private attorneys have molded and adapted these legal modules to a changing roster of assets and have thereby enhanced their clients’ wealth. And states have supported the coding of capital by offering their coercive law powers to enforce the legal rights that have been bestowed on capital.