As used in economics the term 'capital' would be defined as follows: Capital refers to resources withheld from immediate consumption in the expectation of greater future returns. However controversial a topic this has been, capital has been the main–if not the only–way of achieving progress, even in violently anticapitalist, socialist countries. A dam, a hospital, a university, a cathedral, or a national park cannot be built without using up resources that would be easier to consume immediately, and none of them would be built at all unless they were believed to provide some greater returns in the future.