> BTW, can someone out there help me on whether to call my son in law a
> capitalist or a worker? he has paid for and accumulated a lot of musical
> instruments and related recording equipment which i assume is capital.
> however, when he performs he is laboring with his trade tools. is he a
> capitalist or worker? also, when he hires for fixed fees other musicians
> for special accompanyments for his recordings on which he profits, is he
> exploiting this accompanyists or not?
Simple answer to your first question, Mikalac. When he is paid for performing music, he has sold his labor directly at market and he is a worker who owns his means of production. When he hires others for a fee, he is a capitalist, assuming he keeps the proceeds from the performance and pays the musicians for their labor power (the fee).
Capital being a social relation, the term capitalist has no meaning except counterposed with labor. So you can't be a capitalist without exploiting, or more precisely being in a position to exploit, labor. But you can be labor without being exploited by a captalist (and there are many of us in this category).
And, yes, he has the opportunity to exploit the other musicians in the marxian sense. But maybe he won't. Here's an example that might help you think about that question. Suppose your son-in-law charges $100 when he plays alone. He's a worker, yes, but that $100 has to cover both his wage to live on and money to replenish his equipment as it wears out or he needs something different. Suppose he hires two others and charges $300 for the trio. He will pay each of the other two musicians less than $100 apiece (even if they bring their own instruments) because as a capitalist he requires a third kind of funds--profits (surplus value)--or there would be no (economic) reason to hire them. He must end up with something beyond the $100 he would have gotten by himself.
But there's the rub. I said he would have no economic reason to pay each of the other two $100. But all the world is not economics. And, anyway, capital is a social relation. Suppose he gets more enjoyment from playing with the others, than he would get in extracting surplus value from them. Or for sundry other reasons, suppose his social relation in this case is to accept zero profits (since he would be no worse off economically, just no better off, compared to his playing by himself). Would he still be a capitalist? Yeah. He has hired labor and paid them for their labor power. It's just that in this case (in marxian terms) he would have chosen to pay a wage equal to the value of their labor (and foregone surplus value/profits). He would be part of that little known category, capitalist-as-compatriot.
Capitalism sucks. But there can be room within it for the individual to create their own social relations. As long as they don't threaten the dominant form of relations, that is.
You might ask your son-in-law what kind of capitalist he is.
RO