Human Capital
“Physical wealth may be highly visible, but human capital, invisible inside people’s heads, is often more crucial to the long-run prosperity of a nation or a people. John Stuart Mill used this fact to explain why nations often recover, with surprising speed, from the physical devastations of war: “What the enemy have destroyed, would have been destroyed in a little time by the inhabitants themselves” in the normal course of their consumption, and would require replenishing. Given the wear and tear on capital equipment, constant reproduction of new equipment would likewise be required.{ 901} What the war does not destroy is the human capital that created the physical capital in the first place.”
— Basic Economics by #ThomasSowell