Note 9 — Chapter II · —SOME PERTINENT ASPECTS OF THE PRESENT INDUSTRIAL SITUATION

It should be observed that the above definition of capital as the "means which make possible the effective employment of labor in industry" is a functional definition. To make the definition good, so to speak, it would be necessary to enter into an analysis of a complex series of interactions including a study of the action of the banking systems, and the methods of industrial finance. To attempt to state the various forms of capital would involve the same process—for capital is to some extent a secretion of the whole industrial organization. For present purposes it is better to disregard the finer shades of interaction involved in the process of creation of capital and the provision of capital to industry important as they are.

It will suffice to take note only of the simpler and most fundamental aspect of the process. Thus it is not misleading, for present purposes, to say that the capital which is at the command of industry in the U. S. at the present time is the result of accumulation in private hands of some part of the product of past labor.