Posts Tagged ‘golden eggs’
Karl Marx: Capital Commodities
on Saturday, May 23, 2020Karl Marx Money Quote saying Capital assets can include cash, cash equivalents, and marketable securities as well as manufacturing equipment or production facilities and grow in value. Karl Marx said:
“Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being valued, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs” — Karl Marx
Share the Karl Marx Money quote image above on your site:
Short Link to this Quote:
In this quote, Karl Marx is characterizing how capital seems to autonomously generate more capital and wealth through economic activity within a capitalist system. He notes that capital takes the forms of money and commodities that are valued in the market.
Marx then uses the metaphor of capital having an “occult ability” or mysterious power to “add value to itself” and “bring forth living offspring” or yield profits, in the sense that money invested in business ventures and assets can generate returns simply through being put to work in the economy.
The overall interpretation is that Marx is critiquing the notion that capital appears to almost magically or supernaturally reproduce itself and increase in quantity, when in reality this growth stems from the labor and productivity of workers within the capitalist system of private ownership and profit-seeking.
Birthday: May 5, 1818 – Death: March 14, 1883
Louis Brandeis: Taking Others’ Golden Eggs
on Sunday, November 8, 2015Louis Brandeis 1913 Money Quotation saying it is more efficient to take other people’s golden eggs than to wait for yours to be laid by the goose. Louis Brandeis said:
“The goose that lays golden eggs has been considered a most valuable possession. But even more profitable is the privilege of taking the golden eggs laid by somebody else’s goose. The investment bankers and their associates now enjoy that privilege” — Louis Brandeis
Louis Brandeis seems to be criticizing the business practices of investment bankers during his time. He suggests that while owning a successful business that generates profits (“lays golden eggs”) can be very lucrative, it is even more profitable to exploit the success of other people’s businesses without contributing meaningful value yourself.
Brandeis implies that investment bankers of the era were excessively focused on extracting profits from companies they did not create, rather than adding real value through their work.
His remarks portray investment banking as privileging profiting off the work of others over creating businesses and economic opportunities themselves through innovation and risk-taking.
Birthday: November 13, 1856 – Death: October 5, 1941