I think some of the confusion in this thread relates to the fact that 'capital' has two meanings in the economics context. One meaning of capital is 'stored up dead labour utilized to enhance the productivity of living labour'; the second, 'a social relation'. Human capital in the form of education conforms to the first meaning but, obviously, has a very different social relation than physical capital owned by the capitalist. As a university professor, I am still 'wage labour' and still a member of the working class (and there is no sense in making the destinction between blue and white collar here), but I receive at least part of my increased productivity from my 'investment' in education in the form of higher wages. If the employer can appropriate or expropriate that investment (by taping my lectures, printing my textbooks and teaching materials without paying a royalty, forcing me to put my course on the internet or on disc, etc.) then I may not receive any return to my investment and my wages will tend to fall to those of basic labour. Normally, the capital investment can't be expropriated from the worker and thus the social relationship between capital (investment in education/training) and labour is markedly different than it is between physical capital and labour. Likewise for the distribution of the increased productivity of labour.
Paul P
Devine, James wrote:
recently, the NY TIMES had an article about how much "organizational capital" (the "social capital" inside the organization a.k.a. "corporate culture") could be recorded in PCs and thus used and remembered more easily. This, they said, was how the PC helped productivity. Jim D.