Marx presented his theory of rent in what are considered to be two of his most mature economic works: Theories of Surplus Value (henceforth, TSV) and Capital. In TSV, written during 1862–3, Marx investigated the historical development of the concept of rent by examining the related theoretical challenges, contributions of, and errors committed by previous thinkers. In Capital, written throughout the 1860s, 1870s, and early 1880s, the theory of rent was presented in a detailed manner within the context of what Marx calls the general laws of value of commodities and of capitalist production. In what follows, we present Marx’s theory of rent based on these two major works. More specifically, we summarize his critique of earlier thinkers on the subject; provide a description of the fully developed theory of rent he advanced as a result of this critique; and finally present an overview of the various interpretations and debates of this theory that have been proposed within the Marxian economic tradition up through the first fifteen years of the 21st century.
Marx began his analysis of rent in TSV by stating that “all economists share the error of examining surplus-value not as such, in its pure form, but in the particular forms of profit and rent” (Marx 1975, I: 40). Following this assessment, Marx began his investigation of the historical development of the concepts of surplus-value, profit, and rent by identifying the Physiocrats as the first thinkers to make significant contributions to our understanding of these economic categories. Writing in the early 1700’s, the Physiocrats argued that agriculture is the sector of the economy where surplus-value is created, since “the sum total of the means of subsistence which the laborer consumes … is smaller than the sum total of the means of subsistence which he produces” (Marx 1975, I: 46).
Having defined surplus-value as the excess of use-values produced over and above the use-values consumed by agricultural workers, the Physiocrats defined rent as the appropriation of this surplus of use-values by landlords. Marx considered this a major theoretical advancement over the previous analysis conducted by thinkers known as Mercantilists, according to whom surplus-value was simply the excess of money profits resulting from unequal trade between nations.1 However, Marx criticized the Physiocrats for reducing value to use-value and surplus-value “to material substance in general” (Marx 1975, I: 46), likewise for providing a feudal definition of surplus-value, as being “derived from nature and not from society; from man’s relation to the soil, not from his social relations” (Marx 1975, I: 52). The theorizing of surplus-value as resulting from social relations and not nature was, according to Marx, Adam Smith’s most important contribution. Smith argued that money profits (surplus-value) from selling commodities did not originate from the sale of commodities above their value, or as the result of unequal exchange, but rather from the selling of commodities at their values through exchange between equals. This argument implies that a commodity’s surplus-value is included in its value, which in turn suggests that the surplus-value originates in production rather than in trade or exchange. For Smith the profit of a capitalist “originates from the fact that he has not paid for a part of the labor contained in the commodity, but has nevertheless sold it” (Marx 1975, I: 79).
In other words, Smith was able to move beyond the Physiocrats’ feudal definition of value and surplus-value to correctly conclude that profit (surplus-value) is the appropriation (by the capitalist) of the unpaid labor of others (the workers).
Among Adam Smith’s successors, David Ricardo was the only one to call for analyzing the determination of value as a function of labor-time as the starting-point of “the physiology of the bourgeois system—for the understanding of its internal organic coherence and life process” (Marx 1975, II: 166). Having argued that labor was the source of value, both Smith and Ricardo concluded that commodities sell at prices of production—equal to their values—that provide capitalist producers the average rate of profit on capital invested. Although Marx recognized that Smith and Ricardo succeeded in identifying labor as the source of the value and surplus-value of commodities, he criticized them for failing to understand that the values of commodities undergo a two-stage transformation, whereby commodities end up selling at prices not identical to their values.
In TSV and Capital, Marx presented a detailed analysis of this two-stage transformation of values into prices of production as part of the mechanism through which the total mass of surplus-value extracted from the working class is distributed among all capitalist producers. Marx held that this distribution of surplus-value is accomplished by capitalist producers engaging in a competitive struggle among themselves within each sector of the economy, which in turn results in an initial transformation of the individual values of commodities into a common market-value, and a subsequent transformation of market-values into prices of production that results from capitalist competition across different sectors of the economy. Smith and Ricardo’s failure to analyze the transformation of individual values of commodities into a common market-value within sectors prevented them from theorizing what Marx called differential rent; similarly, their failure to analyze the transformation of market-values into prices of production prevented them from theorizing what Marx called absolute rent.
Before discussing Marx’s theory of differential and absolute rent, it is important to review how Smith’s successors faced the theoretical challenge of explaining rent within the context of a theory of value based on labor time. Marx described this challenge as consisting
in showing how, after the equalization of surplus-value between the various capitals to give the average profit … there is still an excess part of this surplus-value leftover, a part which capital invested on the land pays to the landowner in the form of ground-rent.
(Marx 1981: 917)
In other words, since rent represents an amount of money in excess of the average rate of profit that the “farmer-capitalist pays the landowner … for permission to employ his capital in this particular field of production” (Marx 1981: 754), how are the farmer-capitalists expected to come up with this additional amount of money when the selling of their products only provide them enough money to realize the average rate of profit? In a detailed review of the literature, Marx analyzes the two different explanations to this puzzle provided by Smith’s successors: 1) a theory or rent based on monopoly prices; and 2) the alternative theory of rent provided by Ricardo. Regarding the theory of rent based on monopoly prices, Marx stated that it
presupposes the very phenomenon which is to be explained, namely, that in a particular sphere of production, the price of a commodity must carry more than the general rate of profit, more than the average rate of profit, and to this end must be sold above its value. It presupposes that agricultural products are excluded from the general laws of value of commodities and of capitalist production. It, moreover, presupposes this, because the peculiar presence of rent side by side with profit prima facie makes it appear so. Hence this is absurd.
(Marx 1975, II: 36)
Having noted the absurdity of a theory of rent based on monopoly prices, Marx then turned to Ricardo’s theory of rent. According to Ricardo, population growth leads to an increase in the demand for agricultural goods. Since this demand is met by cultivating land of increasingly lesser quality, the price of agricultural goods is ultimately determined by the price of goods produced on marginal land. From this perspective, rent results when those producers working on the best land (and hence, with lower production costs) sell their agricultural goods at the (higher) price determined by agricultural goods produced on the worst land. In the process, they realize profits in excess of the average that landlords appropriate as rent. Marx identified a number of erroneous assumptions in Ricardo’s theory of rent: first, that movement is always towards marginal land; second, that there exists a permanent state of excess demand in agriculture; and third, that agricultural goods always sell at a price equal to the value of goods produced on the worst land.
With respect to the first assumption, Marx argued that not all new land used to produce agricultural goods is of the worst quality, moreover, that the notion that movement is always towards the worst land is not historically accurate. Based on the historical evidence, Marx also disagreed with Ricardo’s assumption that there exists permanent excess demand for agricultural products such as is always driving prices up. Here he noted the empirical evidence that, during the first half of the 18th century, the prices of agricultural goods actually declined due to excess supply (Marx 1975, II: 144). Ultimately, Marx’s main disagreement with Ricardo was that the value of the product in any given sector is not equal to the individual value of the product produced on any particular type of land, but is instead equal to the common market-value for that sector, which is determined by the total quantity of agricultural products produced on all types of land required to satisfy demand:
this law, that the market-value cannot be above the individual value of that product which is produced under the worst conditions of production but provides a part of the necessary supply, Ricardo distorts into the assertion that the market-value cannot fall below the value of that product and must therefore always be determined by it.
(Marx 1975, II: 271)
For Marx the market-value of a commodity represents what he calls the socially necessary labor time: the labor time necessary to produce the quantity of the commodity required to satisfy society’s need or demand. In agriculture, the market-value results from the total quantity of goods (supplied by competing capitalist producers working on all types of land) required to satisfy demand, and this market-value can only equal the value of the product produced on the worst land (as Ricardo argued) if the quantity of goods so produced corresponds to the amount necessary to satisfy demand. Put another way, if the quantity of goods produced on the worst land is not equal to the amount necessary to satisfy demand, or if this quantity is redundant because demand is already being satisfied by the goods being produced on the best land, then it is the latter, not the former, that will determine the commodity’s market-value. In arguing that the price of an agricultural commodity always equals the individual value (or price) of the goods produced on the worst land, Ricardo effectively neglected the effects of capitalist competition and demand on the determination of a commodity’s market-value.
Ricardo’s insistence that goods produced on the worst land always determines the price (or value, since he assumed that the two were identical) of a commodity reflects, according to Marx, an inability to properly grasp the distinction, not only between price and value, but also between the market-value and individual value of commodities. Marx considered this theoretical point to be of such importance that he presented a long quantitative example in Chapter 12 of TSV II, wherein he considered a number of possible scenarios in which the market-value of a commodity (coal) produced in a rent-bearing sector could fall below the individual value of the coal produced in the worst mine, in order to show that rather than playing the determinant role, as Ricardo would argue, production in the worst mine was instead determined by the intensity of competition among capitalist producers facing uncertain demand for their commodity. Marx also rejected Ricardo’s assumption of a declining direction of production from the best to the worst land, arguing rather that the direction of production in rent-bearing sectors like agriculture would instead be ascending from the worst to the best land, if higher quality land is discovered and its product is required to satisfy demand. In this case, it is the best land that determines the market-value, and if the quantity supplied by it is large enough to cause the market-value to fall, then the worst land could be displaced from the market altogether.
In addition to criticizing Ricardo’s failure to understand the transformation of individual values into a common market-value, Marx also criticized his failure to analyze the effect of landed property on the transformation of market-values into prices of production. Marx argued that the unrestricted flow of capital across sectors transforms market-values into prices of production, and that through this process, surplus-value is distributed among capitalist producers in accordance with the size of the capital they invested—what he called their advanced capital. In sectors with landed property, however, Marx argued that the flow of capital into these sectors faces a barrier, inasmuch as capital investment can only occur if the capitalists involved pay rent to landlords. As a result, landed property, by acting as a barrier to the otherwise free flow of capital investment, does not allow the transformation of market-values into prices of production. The transformation of the market-value of agricultural goods into prices of production, therefore, is unable to take place, with the result that these goods are sold not, at their price of production, but at their market-value.
Based on his devastating critique of Ricardo’s theory of rent, Marx was able to provide what he called a theory of ground rent as the “form in which landed property is economically realized and valorized” (Marx 1981: 755). Marx identified two basic types of ground rent: an absolute rent, given by the difference between the value and the price of production of a commodity, and a differential rent, given by the difference between the market-value and the individual value of a commodity. Absolute rent is the rent paid for using even the worst land, and results from two factors: 1) the intervention of landed property, which acts as a barrier to the free flow of capital investment and thus prevents the transformation of a commodity’s market-value into its price of production; and 2) the selling of a commodity at a value above its price of production, which implies that commodities produced in sectors bearing absolute rent have higher values than commodities produced in sectors without absolute rent. This implies that in sectors with absolute rent, more labor or variable capital is used to produce commodities than in sectors without rent.
Marx made the distinction between the amount of money spent on workers, or variable capital (v), and the amount of money spent on machines, equipment, and raw materials, or constant capital (c), and defined the relationship between the two as the organic composition of capital (c/v). Sectors with a high organic composition of capital are less labor intensive than sectors with a low organic composition of capital. This implies that sectors with absolute rent have a low organic composition of capital; products produced in such sectors require more labor (that is, they are labor intensive) and consequently have a higher value than products produced in sectors with a high organic composition of capital.
Using data on agriculture, Marx concluded that during the 1700’s and 1800’s, the introduction of technology in agriculture occurred at a slower pace than in industry, meaning that the organic composition of capital in agriculture was lower than in industry. However, he also noted that in the future, improvements in technology might well see the organic composition of capital in agriculture become equal to, or even greater than, the organic composition of capital in sectors without rent, such as industry. If that were to occur, then absolute rent in agriculture would disappear.
Marx also argued that as a result of the intervention of landed property, the production conditions determining excess profits (to be transformed into rent) in rent-bearing sectors are different than those determining excess profits in industry, since
in industry it is always the most recently added, most productive capital that yields an excess profit by reducing average prices. In agriculture excess profit may be the result, and very often must be the result, not of the absolute increase in fertility of the best fields, but the relative increase in their fertility, because less productive land is being cultivated.
(Marx 1981: 755)
In other words, Marx concluded that what distinguishes agriculture from industry is that, whereas excess profits in industry are obtained via cheaper production, in agriculture they are obtained via dearer production. As a result, the market-value of commodities produced in rent-bearing sectors tends to be determined by production conditions with lower productivity: “In connection with differential rent in general, it should be noted that the market-value is always above the total production price for the overall quantity produced” (Marx 1981: 799). Marx concluded that the intervention of landed property alters the formation of the market-value of all commodities produced in rent-bearing sectors, creating what he calls a false social (or market) value: “…where society, considered as a consumer, pays too much for agricultural products, this is a minus for the realization of its labor-time in agricultural production, but it forms a plus for one portion of society, the landowners” (Marx 1981: 800).
Marx defined differential rent as resulting from the difference between the market-value of a commodity and its individual value. All the commodities that are produced at an individual value below the market-value carry an excess profit, which is taken by the landlord in the form of rent rather than by the capitalist in the form of surplus profits. As discussed above, Marx’s theory of differential rent was a consequence of his critique of Ricardo’s inability to understand the transformation of individual values into a common market-value. Marx’s point is that differential rent is the excess profit that originates as a result of capitalist competition within a sector, which gives rise to a market-value different from individual value; the difference is appropriated by landlords rather than by capitalists who are able to produce at higher productivity levels.
Marx’s emphasis on the formation of market-value in rent-bearing sectors in line with the logic of capitalist competition present in sectors without rent, such as industry, is part of his critique of Ricardo’s implicit assumption: that in rent-bearing sectors, there is no capitalist competition such that the price of agricultural goods is always determined by the worst land. In addition to critiquing Ricardo, Marx made a distinction between what he called differential rent of type I, which results from “the varying productivity of equal capital investments on equal land areas of different fertility” (Marx 1981: 812); and differential rent of type II, which results from the varying productivity of unequal capital investments on lands of equal area and fertility.
Marx was able to provide a logically consistent explanation of the economic category of rent as the economic valorization of landed property under capitalism. Landlords are able to take some of this surplus value in the form of absolute rent so long as they succeed in blocking capital investment in their sectors to the extent that the organic composition of invested capital becomes smaller than the composition of capital invested in sectors without landed property. Alternatively, landlords are able to appropriate a portion of this pool of surplus value in the form of differential rent so long as they succeed in imposing the payment of rent as a requirement for capitalist investment in their lands.
Although Marx placed special emphasis on landed property as a barrier to free competition and the movement of capital within and across sectors—which in turn gives rise to the conditions necessary for the formation of differential and absolute rents—Marx also held that landed property is subject to the capitalist mode of production, in the sense that landed property does not present any real threat to the reproduction of capitalism itself.
Today there is a general consensus among Marxists scholars that Marx defined rent as a class payment received by landlords from capitalist producers as a necessary condition for the production of commodities requiring access to the exploitation of lands or mines. A review of the Marxian economics literature on the theory of rent also reveals a surprising consensus, with the vast majority of authors adopting an interpretation of Marx’s theory of rent that relies on a particular interpretation of Marx’s theory of market-value. This dominant interpretation of Marx’s theory of market-value states that, although in industrial sectors the market-value of commodities is determined by the average conditions of production, in the case of rent-bearing sectors—given the presence of landed property—the market-value of commodities is determined not by the average, but by the worst conditions of production. This theory of market-value determination leads to the also widely adopted interpretation of Marx’s theory of rent stating that differential rent is determined by the conditions of production on the worst lands and mines.
The adoption of this view, which (as we saw above) Marx refuted in his critique of Ricardo, might be explained in part by a lack of interest and detailed research into Marx’s own writings on rent, something that Ernest Mandel pointed out a few decades ago: “Marx’s theory of rent is the most difficult part of his economic theory, the one which has witnessed fewer comments and developments, by followers and critics alike, than other major parts of his system” (Mandel 1990: 38).
This apathetic stance towards the understanding of rent at a time when the environmental destruction wrought by the capitalist system is fast becoming the most serious threat confronting human society is unacceptable to say the least. Such an interpretation can also be explained as a consequence of the essentialist and deterministic methodology used by the vast majority of Marxist economists, which emphasizes production conditions as the main determinant of value. Ironically, one of the first to offer this essentialist interpretation linking Marx’s theory of market-value to Marx’s theory of rent was Mandel:
So long as, through increase in population and a lag in agricultural productivity, the demand for agricultural produce exceeds the supply, this price will remain determined by the value of the agricultural commodities produced under the worst conditions of profitability…The difference between this price and the price of production of the wheat produced on land with a higher productivity represents a differential rent which is taken by the landowner.
(Mandel 1962: 276).
Mandel does correctly define the price of agricultural products as being determined by the worst production conditions, so long, of course, as demand for the product exceeds supply. However, 22 pages later, when again discussing the determination of the price of agricultural products, he says:
According to Marx’s theory of ground rent, it is in fact the demand for agricultural products which in the last resort determines the price of these products. This price is based on the value of the unit produced on the plot of land with the worst conditions of productivity (marginal price) where products find a buyer.
(Mandel 1962: 298)
Essentially, Mandel contradicts himself: whereas initially he stated that the market-value of wheat was determined by the worst conditions of production “so long … as demand exceeds supply,” 22 pages later he is claiming that, although demand seems to be the determinant of value, in reality it no longer matters, since he now implicitly assumes that the product of the worst land creates its own demand, inasmuch as it always “finds a buyer.”
Mandel is, in fact, describing a particular state of the market, one that assumes that an excess of demand is the permanent state of the market in the agricultural sector, thus leading to the conclusion that the worst land always determines the market-value of agricultural products. Discussion or even acknowledgement of Mandel’s contradiction is not only completely missing in the literature, most writers who came after Mandel have adopted the same interpretation, even placing greater emphasis on the role played by production conditions while neglecting the role played by demand in determining market-value. In Fine (1979), for example, the role played by demand in determining the market-value of commodities produced in rent-bearing sectors is completely ignored. Indeed, he is one of the first to argue that the determination of market-value of commodities in rent-bearing sectors undergoes a distortion compared to that of market-value in industrial sectors without rent. According to Fine:
the market-value is not formed from the average of normal values, but by the worst method of production. This is not because the worst method is predominant, but because the intervention of landed property modifies the social formation of value in agriculture.
(Fine 1979: 250)
However, instead of providing a clear explanation of the mechanism by which the intervention of landed property leads to market-values being “formed” by the worst method of production, Fine cites—in a puzzling manner—the following paragraph from Capital, which clearly describes Marx’s own method:
This is determination by market-value as it asserts itself on the basis of capitalist production through competition; the latter creates a false social value. This arises from the law of market value, to which the products of the soil are subject. The determination of market value of products, including therefore agricultural products, is a social act, albeit a socially unconscious and unintentional one. It is based necessarily upon the exchange value of the product, not upon the soil and the differences of its fertility.
(Marx 1981: 799)
The distortion in the determination of market-values in rent-bearing sectors is also suggested by Itoh (1980). According to Itoh “…the marginal worst condition which is necessary to satisfy the social demand become the regulator of market value” (Itoh 1980: 89). Unfortunately, if Itoh had considered cases where production corresponding to the marginal worst condition might not be necessary to satisfy social demand, he would have concluded, as did Marx, that in those cases, the marginal worst condition cannot be the regulator of market-value. Shaikh (1990) provides an almost identical interpretation of the determination of market-value in rent-bearing sectors:
it should be noted, incidentally, that while the shift of regulating conditions to one extreme or the other is precipitated here by ‘extraordinary combinations’ of supply and demand, this need not be the case when we consider technical change (in which the regulating conditions will be the best generally accessible methods of production) or production in agriculture and mining in which the regulating conditions are often the ones on the margin of cultivation and location, hence among the worst of the lands and locations in use.
(Shaikh 1990: 256)
The assumption made by all of these authors of a permanent state of excess demand is once again explicitly stated by Mandel in his introduction to Capital, where he argues that in sectors where landed property prevent an influx of capital, “there is a long term preponderance of demand over supply. So the firms operating with the lowest productivity of labor in the branch still receive the average rate of profit (i.e., they determine the price of production, or the value, of the commodity produced in that branch)” (Marx 1981: 56).
Alternatively, if excess demand is not assumed, supporters of the view that the worst land always determines the market-value in rent-bearing sectors assume that the worst land’s product is always necessary to satisfy demand. Yet as Marx argued against Ricardo, there may be cases when the supply from the best land makes the supply from the worst land, not only unnecessary, but even redundant. In such cases, it is the best land that determines both the market-value and the amount of differential rent to be appropriated by landlords.
The essentialist interpretation of Marx’s theory of market-value and rent described above has been challenged by a small but growing number of authors. Based on a detailed reading of Marx’s writings, they argue that it is wrong to conclude that a particular condition of production (i.e., the worst land) should in and of itself determine the market-value of commodities without taking into account demand and other production conditions. Indart (1988), for example, argues that in sectors without rent:
demand conditions establish what conditions of production are to become the value-determining ones, but their selection is from a given set of production conditions. It is in this sense that I see demand conditions as playing an indirect role in the determination of value.
(Indart 1988: 457)
Horverak (1988) for his part provides a similar interpretation of Marx’s theory of market-value:
the market value of the commodities will now depend on whether there is correspondence between society’s total demand for a commodity and the labor time spent on producing it… The scope of variation in the market value is set by the individual values: the market value can never be higher than the individual value of the commodity produced under the worst production conditions, or lower than the individual value of the commodity produced under the best conditions.
(Horverak 1988: 282).
More recently, the dominant interpretation of Marx’s theory of market-value has been criticized in a number of articles by Kristjanson-Gural (2005, 2009). In these articles, Kristjanson-Gural calls attention to the implicit essentialist methodology used in the dominant interpretation of Marx’s theory of market-value, which contradicts what he persuasively shows to be Marx’s own anti-essentialist approach. According to Kristjanson-Gural (2009), the Marxian tradition by failing to recognize Marx’s anti-essentialist methodology has committed what he calls a diachronic error in their interpretation of Marx’s theory of market-value, one that
results from comparing logical claims at two different moments or levels of analysis without taking into account the different meanings and relationships between concepts that apply at each level.
(Kristjanson-Gural 2009:15)
More specifically, this diachronic error has translated into a failure to understand how Marx developed the meaning of market-value through a step-by-step introduction of new contingencies into his analysis, likewise, how this concept relates to the relationship between value and exchange-value. By ignoring the steps Marx introduced in defining value in the first chapter of Capital volume I, where value is presented as resulting from a production process carried out by an individual capitalist, to the more developed concept of value as market-value in Chapter 10 of Capital volume III, in the context of intra-industry competition, the Marxian tradition has failed to trace the logical development of the concept of value as socially necessary labor time.
Marx’s step-by-step methodology gives rise to a very different interpretation of the concepts of market-value and socially necessary labor time; market-value becomes defined as the value of the commodity such as corresponds to the amount of labor time socially necessary in a dual sense: reflective of the average amount of time needed to produce the commodity and the amount of labor time needed to satisfy the existing social need, or demand, for the commodity.
In contrast to the dominant interpretation, an anti-essentialist interpretation finds no contradictions vis-à-vis Marx’s presentation of market-value in Chapter 10 of Capital volume III, wherein market-value is over-determined by both production and demand conditions: value is determined by the production process, while its magnitude is determined by demand vis-à-vis the spectrum of individual values ranging from the lowest to the highest individual value of commodities produced by competing capitalists seeking to satisfy the existing social need.
This anti-essentialist critique of the dominant theory of market-value in Marxian economics opens the door to an interpretation of Marx’s theory of rent that enables us to better understand some of the most important features of the global capitalist system of the 21st century, wherein production and demand for primary commodities continue to play a crucial role in both advanced and emerging economies. Marxian economists need to rethink their understanding of market-value and rent by taking into account—rather than neglecting—a proper analysis of the brutal competition for profits that currently drives the behavior of producers operating on all types of land, likewise the determinants of the demand or social need of growing populations for these commodities.
1 “In the Mercantile system, surplus-value is only relative—what one wins, the other loses: profit upon alienation or oscillation of wealth between different parties. So that within a country, if we consider the total capital, no creation of surplus-value in fact takes place. It can only arise in the relations between one nation and other nations.” (Marx 1975, I: 66).
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