The Foundations of Capital Theory

We may begin by defining human action as any deliberate behavior or conduct. A person acts to attain certain goals he/she feels are important. Value refers to the degree of subjective appreciation the actor assigns his goal. … The means is anything the actor subjectively considers adequate to accomplish [his goal or end]. Utility represents the subjective appraisal the actor makes of the means, in terms of the value of the goal he believes it will help him to achieve. Means must be scarce by definition: if the actor did not regard them as such in light of his objectives, he would not even take them into account before acting. Ends and means are not “given” (i.e., data) but instead result from the fundamental entrepreneurial activity of human beings, an activity which consists of creating, discovering, or simply realizing which ends and means are relevant for the actor in each set of specific circumstances of time and place he encounters.