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What is 'natural capital' — and is nature a commodity?
Normally, you would need to combine a forest with labour to produce capital — e.g. furniture to be sold. Today however, nature can be traded to ‘offset’ damage done elsewhere, locking us into a vicious cycle, explains the MARX MEMORIAL LIBRARY

KARL MARX wrote a lot about capital. And for Marxists today one meaning of “capital” at least is clear. It is private property — financial as well as physical, whether owned by individuals or corporations — which can be used to generate value.  

Under capitalism, that value is produced through labour, by workers, who receive less in wages or other benefits (such as education or health services, paid for through taxation) than the value they produce.  

The excess, the “surplus,” is taken as profit by the owners of capital, either for personal consumption or to invest in more capital to generate yet more wealth.  

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