Anyone Can Be a Capitalist, part 1

by | Dec 7, 2024

Anyone Can Be a Capitalist, part 1

by | Dec 7, 2024

“[A]ny man can be a capitalist if only he wants to be. He can derive his funds solely from the fruits of previous capitalist investment or from past ‘hoarded’ cash balances or solely from his income as a laborer or a landowner. He can, of course, derive his funds from several of these sources. The only thing that stops a man from being a capitalist is his own high time-preference scale, in other words, his stronger desire to consume goods in the present. Marxists and others who postulate a rigid stratification—a virtual caste structure in society—are in grave error. The same person can be at once a laborer, a landowner, and a capitalist, in the same period of time.”

—Murray N. Rothbard, Man, Economy, and State

Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman

Sheldon Richman is the executive editor of The Libertarian Institute and a contributing editor at Antiwar.com. He is the former senior editor at the Cato Institute and Institute for Humane Studies; former editor of The Freeman, published by the Foundation for Economic Education; and former vice president at the Future of Freedom Foundation. His latest books are Coming to Palestine and What Social Animals Owe to Each Other.

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