You know it's funny, most that talk about capital do so simply because they want some, so they can have this illusory power to make their lives easier. The funny thing is the only reason anyone can attain this fictitious state is because everyone agrees, well almost everyone. I for one find it a laughing matter, as i see it enjoyed by so many monkey brains, throwbacks to the Pleistocene period, OK, maybe not quite so far back, but you get the point.
OK, let me qualify. In terms of air, water, food, and thus land on which to capture/cultivate the latter two, (It's a good thing air is free, huh?), it goes to show that the human animal shall try and monopolize anything they can so that they can sit on a bed of slaves, which is in fact the aim of capital; to make ones life easier at the expense of another life/lives, Capitalism is actually a pyramid scheme of domination (dictatorship) of the slave population. It's what it is now and what it has always been.
Anyway I can see the importance of these things (food & water thus land) as they're fundamental to life. These seen as capital are only seen as such because they were stolen so many years ago, long before you or I were born, such that we are born into the world where all has been laid claim to. The only thing different between those that own it and those that don't is time, and of course the willingness to kill for it, well at least their ancestors. It's easy to maintain it's 'ownership' today, where they first beat you with their paper pulp clubs backed by their WMD's and cages. The last ancient people, that I'm aware of, that had a healthy outlook on land was the American Indians, and of course I need not tell you what the white man from Europe did to them, can you say 'United States of America.'
But money, I just don't see it at all. I mean money that's backed by gold and silver. This is where the aforementioned monkey brains comes in. whether it was Homo habilis to Homo erectus to Homo sapiens, it really doesn't matter who found the heavy, shiny, sparkly, yellow colored rock, which is all it was in the beginning, Silver too. I mean granted, some of the metal elements, thanks to supernova, are kind of eye catching, and as far as when they became bartering material that's all they were; fancy rocks! Now we know that they have some interesting properties for specific uses. And to be quite frank I don't see that either, because there's not that much that they're really good for..., really!
Silver is the best conductor of electricity but it oxidizes, like there's no tomorrow, so it's pretty much useless for make/break contacts. Then there's it's ability to naturally hinder the growth of bacteria, much to the Romans benefit. But today we have glass, pasteurization and canning, not much need for silver there, so what the hell is it good for these days anyway? The only thing gold's got going for it is that it's the second best conductor of electrical current and it corrodes very slowly, which is why it's used on this computer here's make & break connectors, but you still have to re-seat them every once in a while to burnish them. It's so much a pretty rock, and this is what we're reduced to? So much left over from the monkey brains of millions of years ago, he he he he, ha ha ha ha HA HA HA HA!
If you ask me, if you really want to base value on an element, be smart about it, act as though you've actually surpassed the age of monkey brains. I'd say that both Uranium and Plutonium should replace Gold and Silver for a lot of reasons.
I'm just wondering if the human animal will actually 'ever' advance, and I'll have the pleasure to witness it.