Then capitalism cannot exist and never has, because there is no such thing as something which produces wealth merely by possession. Mere ownership (as in a legal title) does not and cannot yield an income. To have a yield, something must be put to use. Without a use, there is no yield. Capital (in the sense of the monetary value of assets) is merely an index for the utility of assets in producing a yield. There is nothing special about the yield of capital; there is properly speaking no yield to capital at all, only a yield for the assets which the capital indexes. Entrepreneurs gain wealth by choosing which uses to put assets at their disposal. It is only when assets are put into production that they yield a profit or loss. And wealth accumulates only when there is sustainable profits. Mere posession would not involve exchange, let alone production, and therefore could not yield any profit. There is no "free" or "automatic" generation of income. It is the result of conscious activity on part of the owner, as is capital itself.

The distinction between capitalism and earlier forms of production is that money provides a means to index the yield of assets by capitalizing the value of those assets. The ability to quantitatively track the yield provides the ability to determine whether you are able to replace the asset or if you are consuming it. Accumulation can be planned by resolving to consume less than the yield of the asset. Capital and capital accounting, too, has existed nearly as long as civilization has existed. But the cause of the yield is in principle no different from the yield of resources in pre-history, which is refraining from consuming more than you produce. What is unique is the ability to determine the economic yield of things quantitatively, not procedure by which wealth accumulates.