Concepts of Capital: The Commodification of Social Life

Borrowing terminology from the economic discipline—specifically the concept of "capital"—has led to an abundance of new terms in the social sciences: human capital, social capital, and cultural capital, to name the most prominent representatives on an ever-growing list. In this interdisciplinary transaction, the concept is borrowed and the original meaning extended until the new concepts often have nothing left in common with their initial referents.

Here Jacek Tittenbrun offers a critical a...