Ahiakpor bids us read (and believe) the following from Clark's attack on  
Boehm-Bawerk:  
  
"For the common and practical conception of capital as a   
permanent fund or amount of wealth expressible in money, -- thought not   
actually embodied in money, -- there is substituted (by Boehm-Bawerk) the  
conception of   
concrete goods, distinguishable from others by reason of the place that   
they occupy in the order of industrial production ... This course has   
entailed confusion in the writings of each one who has adopted it, and   
it has caused needless controversies between different writers" (1893,  
306)."  
  
That of course is vintage Clark. Rereading it does not make it more  
persuasive.  
  
It seems to me that it is helpful here to distinguish intrinsic and  
extrinsic value. B-B's capital has intrinsic value. Clark includes paper  
claims to goods in general, which he endows with a kind of Rosicrucian  
immortality.  
  
The capital of society as a whole is the sum of the intrinsic values. Paper  
claims, on the other hand, are generally layered and pyramided and add up to  
more than the sum of intrinsic values. As to flows, there are speculations  
in derivatives and foreign exchange etc. that go way beyond transfers of  
real wealth.  
  
In addition, paper claims include claims to landownership, to quotas and  
licenses granted by politicians, etc., which are not capital in the sense of  
man-made additions to social wealth. Clark's conflating of extrinsic with  
intrinsic values is part of his enduring campaign to conflate landownership  
and licenses, et al., with social capital.  
  
They are also part of his world-view that social wealth is simply the sum of  
individual (including corporate) claims to wealth. I am not aware that he  
ever discussed slavery, but if he did you can infer what he would have said  
about the Emancipation Proclamation. To push that a little farther (perhaps  
too far, to illustrate a point) suppose The Mafia incorporated and sold  
shares, before long Clark might well include their market value with his  
kind of capital. Moderns would chime in and call it an "efficient market" so  
long as no one could profit by further arbitrage in the shares.  
  
B-B's emphasis on intrinsic values is more consistent with a study of social  
economy than Clark's emphasis on extrinsic values.  Accordingly, one might  
say that the Austrians, or at least B-B, were more socially minded than  
Clark, Knight, and their followers. It is thus perhaps a mistake to fault  
Austrians in general for excessive individualism.  Or at least we should ask  
"Which Austrian", and "Compared to whom?"  
  
Mason Gaffney