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Capital accumulation is the dynamic that motivates the pursuit of profit, involving the investment of money or any financial asset with the goal of increasing the initial monetary value of said asset as a financial return whether in the form of profit, rent, interest, royalties or capital gains. The aim of capital accumulation is to create new fixed and working capitals, broaden and modernize the existing ones, grow the material basis of social-cultural activities, as well as constituting the necessary resource for reserve and insurance.[1] The process of capital accumulation forms the basis of capitalism, and is one of the defining characteristics of a capitalist economic system.[2][3]
^Caves, R. W. (2004). Encyclopedia of the City. Routledge. p. 65.
^Unbounded Organization and the Future of Socialism, by Howard Richards. 2013. Education as Change, Vol. 17, No. 2, pp. 229-242: "Capital accumulation is both a dynamic and a logic. It is a dynamic that motivates human action, namely the pursuit of profit. It is a logic that defines rational decision-making, namely optimizing profits by maximizing revenue from sales while minimizing costs...The case is better understood if one takes into account that accumulation is the mainspring (according to Marx, the invariable accompaniment and virtually the definition) of capitalism."
