1. Makes the meaning of the noun "capital" unequivocal.
In this sense, capital contributions are made solely by savers, in the sense specified in the previous chapter: individuals and private associations with a non-commercial purpose, exclusively.
2. One implication of this unequivocal definition of capital is also an unequivocal definition of credit.
Let us only call credit financing other than a capital contribution. Later in this chapter, the distinction between capital and quasi-capital leads to the completion of the definition of credit: other than a capital or quasi-capital contribution.
3. "It would be of great advantage to have at least two different words to designate capital depending on whether it is in an active or passive position."
Paul Fabra remarked on this in Various Meanings of the Word "Capital", second appendix to chapter 5 of Refounding Political Economy. "Active position" means: part or all of the investment stock, or asset. "Passive position" means: part or all of the financing stock, or liabilities. However, despite its name, liabilities are economically essential, for two peremptory reasons: 1) Financing is essential for any investment. 2) Inappropriate financing structures lead to exponential over-indebtedness.
The first double-entry accounts were those of customers who started with a duty, in the "Debit" column, after which the settlement is recorded in the "Credit" column. Then came the balance sheet invented a century later, on the side of the inventory accounts whose balance is debit (a customer owes, debit balance), then mechanically took position to the left of the Liabilities, on the side of the inventory accounts whose balance is credit (a supplier has made credit, credit balance).
5. The "Credit | "Rate" is economically more relevant in languages that are written from left to right and from top to bottom.
If this order is completely declined, the "passive" positions (financing) are stated before the "active" positions (investments) – before: above or in the left column. It is economically more relevant.
6. In business, the "capital", more capital than any other, is the financier.
Whether this permanent financing is provided more or less in cash or in kind (land, buildings, machinery, business) or in industry (patents, know-how) does not change anything. To object that this capital is only financial does not hold water. The enterprise is the only institution that exists only through and for the practice of economic exchanges. It therefore exists only through and for financial flows between it and its suppliers of all kinds (including capital providers and employees) on the one hand, and it and its customers (which, often or exclusively, are other enterprises) on the other. Even if all this could be done only by barter, these flows would have a financial reality through the unit of value that would be used to account for them, and then to establish whether the enterprise keeps or melts the savings placed in the capital it operates.