Capital

Capital is something which in its generality is quite specific to capitalism; while capital predates capitalism, in capitalist society the production of capital pre-dominates, and dominates every other sort of production. Capital cannot be understood apart from capitalist relations of production. Indeed, capital is not a thing at all, but a social relation which appears in the form of a thing. To be sure, capital is about money-making, but the assets which 'make' money embody a particular relation between those who have money and those who do not, such that not only is money 'made', but also the private property relations which engender such a process are themselves continually reproduced.

Marx writes:

Capital is not a thing, but rather a definite social production relation, belonging to a definite historical formation of society, which is manifested in a thing and lends this thing a specific social character.... It is the means of production monopolized by a certain section of society, confronting living labour-power as products and working conditions rendered independent of this very labour-power, which are personified through this antithesis in capital. It is not merely the products of labourers turned into independent powers, products as rulers and buyers of their producers, but rather also the social forces and the... form of this labour, which confront the labourers as properties of their products. Here, then, we have a definite and, at first glance, very mystical, social form, of one of the factors in a historically produced social production process.