thebase.works · Das Kapital III Kap. 46 · semantic zoom
Z3
Kap. 46
Baustellenrente und Bergwerksrente
The reader arrives carrying absolute rent fixed as a part of surplus-value that landed property intercepts, not a charge added to the buyer's price, and with the test of equally good land showing that differential rent needs inequality. What Marx takes up next is the reach of differential rent's law: whether, wherever rent exists at all, it follows the same laws as in agriculture, on building land and in mines as on the farm.
Die Differentialrente tritt überall ein und folgt überall denselben Gesetzen wie die agrikole Differentialrente, wo überhaupt Rente existiert. Überall, wo Naturkräfte monopolisierbar sind und dem Industriellen, der sie anwendet, einen Surplusprofit sichern, sei es ein Wassergefälle oder ein reichhaltiges Bergwerk oder ein fischreiches Wasser oder ein gutgelegner Bauplatz, fängt der durch seinen Titel auf einen Teil des Erdballs zum Eigentümer dieser Naturgegenstände Gestempelte diesen Surplusprofit dem fungierenden Kapital in der Form der Rente ab. Was Land zu Bauzwecken betrifft, so hat A. Smith auseinandergesetzt, wie die Grundlage seiner Rente, wie die aller nicht agrikolen Ländereien, durch die eigentliche Ackerbaurente geregelt ist. (Book I, chap. XI, 2 und 3.) Es zeichnet sich diese Rente aus erstens durch den überwiegenden Einfluß, den hier die Lage auf die Differentialrente ausübt (sehr bedeutend z.B. beim Weinbau und bei Bauplätzen in großen Städten); zweitens durch die Handgreiflichkeit der gänzlichen Passivität des Eigentümers, dessen Aktivität bloß darin besteht (namentlich bei Bergwerken), den Fortschritt der gesellschaftlichen Entwicklung auszubeuten, zu dem er nichts beiträgt und bei dem er nichts riskiert, wie doch der industrielle Kapitalist tut, und endlich durch das Vorwiegen des Monopolpreises in vielen Fällen, speziell der schamlosesten Ausbeutung des Elends (denn das Elend ist für die Hausrente eine ergiebigere Quelle, als die Minen von Potosi je für Spanien waren38), und die ungeheure Macht, die dies Grundeigentum gibt, wenn es mit dem industriellen Kapital in derselben Hand vereinigt, dieses befähigt, die Arbeiter im Kampf um den Arbeitslohn praktisch von der Erde als ihrem Wohnsitz auszuschließen.39 Ein Teil der Gesellschaft verlangt hier von den andern einen Tribut für das Recht, die Erde bewohnen zu dürfen, wie überhaupt im Grundeigentum das Recht der Eigentümer eingeschlossen ist, den Erdkörper, die Eingeweide der Erde, die Luft und damit die Erhaltung und Entwicklung des Lebens zu exploitieren. Nicht nur das Steigen der Bevölkerung, und damit das wachsende Bedürfnis der Behausung, sondern auch die Entwicklung des fixen Kapitals, das sich entweder der Erde einverleibt oder Wurzeln in ihr schlägt, auf ihr ruht, wie alle industriellen Gebäude, Eisenbahnen, Warenhäuser, Fabrikgebäude, Docks usw., steigert die Baurente notwendig. Eine Verwechslung zwischen der Hausmiete, soweit sie Zins und Amortisation des im Haus angelegten Kapitals, und der Rente für den bloßen Boden, ist hier selbst bei Careyschem gutem Willen nicht möglich, namentlich wenn, wie in England, der Grundeigentümer und der Bauspekulant ganz verschiedne Personen sind. Es kommen hier zwei Elemente in Betracht: auf der einen Seite die Exploitation der Erde zum Zweck der Reproduktion oder Extraktion, auf der andern der Raum, der als ein Element aller Produktion und alles menschlichen Wirkens erheischt ist. Und nach beiden Seiten hin verlangt das Grundeigentum seinen Tribut. Die Nachfrage für Bauterrain hebt den Wert des Bodens als Raum und Grundlage, während dadurch zugleich die Nachfrage nach Elementen des Erdkörpers wächst, die als Baumaterial dienen.40
rent generalized; the owner intercepts

Wherever there is rent at all, differential rent turns up everywhere and follows the same laws everywhere as differential rent in agriculture. Wherever natural forces can be monopolized and secure a surplus profit to the industrialist who uses them — a waterfall, a rich mine, waters full of fish, a well-placed building site — the man whom a title to a piece of the globe stamps as owner of these natural objects intercepts that surplus profit from the functioning capital, in the form of rent. As for land used for building, Adam Smith set out how the basis of its rent, like that of all non-agricultural land, is regulated by agricultural rent proper. This rent is marked out, first, by the overwhelming influence that location has here on the differential rent (very great, for example, in wine-growing and for building sites in big cities); second, by how plainly the owner is wholly passive — all he does (in mining above all) is exploit the progress of social development, to which he contributes nothing and in which he risks nothing, unlike the industrial capitalist, who does; and finally, by the prevalence in many cases of monopoly price — and, above all, of the most shameless exploitation of poverty (poverty is a richer source of house-rent than the mines of Potosí ever were for Spain) — and by the enormous power this landed property gives when it is joined with industrial capital in the same hands — the power, in the fight over wages, practically to shut the workers out of the earth as their dwelling place. Here one part of society demands a tribute from the other for the right to be allowed to live on the earth, just as landed property in general includes the owners' right to exploit the body of the earth, its bowels, the air, and with them the maintenance and development of life itself. Building rent necessarily rises not only with the growth of population, and with it the growing need for housing, but also with the development of fixed capital that is built into the earth or takes root in it and rests on it: all industrial buildings, railways, warehouses, factories, docks and so on. Here, even with the goodwill of a Carey, no one can confuse house-rent — in so far as it is interest on, and amortization of, the capital put into the house — with the rent for the bare ground, especially when, as in England, the landowner and the speculative builder are quite different people. Two things count here: on one side, the earth exploited for reproduction or extraction; on the other, the space that every kind of production and all human activity requires. On both counts landed property demands its tribute. The demand for building land raises the value of the ground as space and foundation, while by the same token the demand grows for those parts of the earth's body that serve as building material.

Wie in rasch fortschreitenden Städten, besonders wo das Bauen wie in London fabrikmäßig betrieben wird, die Bodenrente, nicht das Haus den eigentlichen Grundgegenstand der Bauspekulation bildet, davon haben wir ein Beispiel gegeben Buch II, Kap. XII, S. 215, 216 <Siehe Band 24, S. 236/237>, in den Aussagen eines großen Londoner Bauspekulanten, Edward Capps, vor dem Bankausschuß von 1857. Er sagt dort Nr. 5435:
the example: Capps's evidence

In fast-growing cities — above all where building is run like a factory, as in London — what building speculation is really after is the ground-rent, not the house. We gave an example of this in Volume II, chapter XII: the evidence of Edward Capps, a big London speculative builder, to the Bank Acts Committee of 1857. In his evidence, no. 5435, he says:

"Ich glaube, ein Mann, der in der Welt vorankommen will, kann kaum erwarten voranzukommen durch Einhaltung eines soliden Geschäfts (fair trade) ... er muß notwendig außerdem auf Spekulation bauen, und das auf großem Maßstab; denn der Unternehmer macht sehr wenig Profit aus den Gebäuden selbst, er macht seinen Hauptprofit aus den gesteigerten Grundrenten. Er übernimmt meinetwegen ein Stück Land und gibt jährlich 300 Pfd.St. dafür; wenn er nach einem sorgfältigen Bauplan die richtige Klasse von Häusern darauf errichtet, kann es ihm gelingen, 400 oder 450 Pfd.St. jährlich daraus zu machen, und sein Profit würde viel mehr in der vermehrten Grundrente von 100 oder 150 Pfd.St. jährlich bestehn als in dem Profit aus den Gebäuden, den er in vielen Fällen überhaupt kaum in Betracht zieht."
Capps on the builder's main profit

In Edward Capps's view, a man who wants to get on in the world can hardly expect to do it by sticking to plain, honest trade; he must also, of necessity, build on speculation, and on a large scale. For the builder, he says, makes very little profit out of the buildings themselves and makes his main profit out of the increased ground-rents. Say, Capps suggests, the builder takes a piece of land and pays £300 a year for it. If he builds the right class of houses on it to a careful plan, he may succeed in getting £400 or £450 a year out of it, and on Capps's reckoning his profit would then lie far more in the increased ground-rent of £100 or £150 a year than in the profit on the buildings — which in many cases he hardly takes into account at all.

Wobei nicht zu vergessen ist, daß nach Ablauf des Mietkontrakts von meistens 99 Jahren der Boden mit allen darauf befindlichen Gebäuden und mit der inzwischen meist auf mehr als das Doppelte und Dreifache gesteigerten Grundrente von dem Bauspekulanten oder seinem Rechtsnachfolger wieder an den ursprünglichen letzten Grundeigentümer zurückfällt.
the lease ends, land reverts

And it should not be forgotten that when the lease runs out — usually after ninety-nine years — the land, with all the buildings standing on it and with a ground-rent that has by then usually risen to more than twice or three times what it was, falls back from the speculative builder or his legal successor to the original ultimate landowner.

Die eigentliche Bergwerksrente ist bestimmt ganz wie die Ackerbaurente.
mining rent proper, like agricultural rent

Mining rent proper is determined exactly like agricultural rent.

"Es gibt einige Bergwerke, deren Produkt kaum hinreicht, die Arbeit zu bezahlen und das darin angelegte Kapital samt dem gewöhnlichen Profit zu ersetzen. Sie werfen dem Unternehmer einigen Profit ab, aber keine Rente für den Grundeigentümer. Sie können mit Vorteil nur vom Grundeigentümer bearbeitet werden, der als sein eigner Unternehmer den gewöhnlichen Profit aus seinem angelegten Kapital macht. Viele Kohlengruben in Schottland werden in dieser Art betrieben und können in keiner andern Art betrieben werden. Der Grundeigentümer erlaubt niemand anders, sie ohne Rentezahlung zu betreiben, aber niemand kann Rente dafür zahlen." (A. Smith, Book I, chap. XI, 2.)
Smith's mines that pay no rent

In Adam Smith's account, there are some mines whose product barely suffices to pay the labour and to replace the capital laid out in them together with the ordinary profit. They give the man who runs them some profit, he says, but no rent to the landowner. They can be worked with advantage only by the landowner himself, running them as his own concern and making the ordinary profit on the capital he puts in. Many coal mines in Scotland, Smith goes on, are worked in this way and can be worked in no other. The landowner, as he puts it, lets no one else work them without paying rent — and no one can pay rent for them.

Kap. 46
Der Bodenpreis verdeckt den Tribut
The reader arrives carrying the generalization that differential rent follows agricultural law wherever rent exists, and that building and mining rent are marked by location, the owner's passivity, and the power title gives over dwelling and extraction. What was still missing is the direction of dependence. Marx now settles it: whether a monopoly price is the source of rent or only its possible consequence, and why the price of land, by presenting capitalized tribute as a paid equivalent, hides that a title lets some people appropriate part of society's surplus labour. The title's historical source, and its transience, come into view here.
Man muß unterscheiden, ob die Rente aus einem Monopolpreis fließt, weil ein von ihr unabhängiger Monopolpreis der Produkte oder des Bodens selbst existiert, oder ob die Produkte zu einem Monopolpreis verkauft werden, weil eine Rente existiert. Wenn wir von Monopolpreis sprechen, so meinen wir überhaupt einen Preis, der nur durch die Kauflust und Zahlungsfähigkeit der Käufer bestimmt ist, unabhängig von dem durch den allgemeinen Produktionspreis wie von dem durch den Wert der Produkte bestimmten Preis. Ein Weinberg, der Wein von ganz außerordentlicher Güte erzeugt, Wein, der überhaupt nur in relativ geringer Quantität erzeugt werden kann, trägt einen Monopolpreis. Der Weinzüchter würde infolge dieses Monopolpreises, dessen Überschuß über den Wert des Produkts allein durch den Reichtum und die Liebhaberei der vornehmen Weintrinker bestimmt ist, einen bedeutenden Surplusprofit realisieren. Dieser Surplusprofit, der hier aus einem Monopolpreis fließt, verwandelt sich in Rente und fällt in dieser Form dem Grundeigentümer anheim, infolge seines Titels auf dies mit besondern Eigenschaften begabte Stück des Erdkörpers. Hier schafft also der Monopolpreis die Rente. Umgekehrt würde die Rente den Monopolpreis schaffen, wenn Getreide nicht nur über seinen Produktionspreis, sondern auch über seinen Wert verkauft würde infolge der Schranke, die das Grundeigentum der rentelosen Anlage von Kapital auf unbebautem Boden zieht. Daß es nur der Titel einer Anzahl von Personen auf das Eigentum am Erdball ist, der sie befähigt, einen Teil der Mehrarbeit der Gesellschaft sich als Tribut anzueignen und mit der Entwicklung der Produktion sich in stets steigendem Maß anzueignen, wird durch den Umstand verdeckt, daß die kapitalisierte Rente, also eben dieser kapitalisierte Tribut als Preis des Bodens erscheint und dieser daher wie jeder andre Handelsartikel verkauft werden kann. Für den Käufer erscheint daher sein Anspruch auf die Rente nicht als umsonst erhalten, und ohne die Arbeit, das Risiko und den Unternehmungsgeist des Kapitals umsonst erhalten, sondern als zu seinem Äquivalent bezahlt. Ihm erscheint, wie schon früher bemerkt, die Rente nur als Zins des Kapitals, womit er den Boden und damit den Anspruch auf die Rente erkauft hat. Ganz so erscheint einem Sklavenhalter, der einen Neger gekauft hat, sein Eigentum an dem Neger nicht durch die Institution der Sklaverei als solche, sondern durch Kauf und Verkauf von Ware erworben. Aber der Titel selbst wird durch den Verkauf nicht erzeugt, sondern nur übertragen. Der Titel muß da sein, bevor er verkauft werden kann, und sowenig wie ein Verkauf, kann eine Reihe von solchen Verkäufen, ihre beständige Wiederholung, diesen Titel schaffen. Was ihn überhaupt geschaffen hat, waren die Produktionsverhältnisse. Sobald diese auf einem Punkt angelangt sind, wo sie sich umhäuten müssen, fällt die materielle, die ökonomisch und historisch berechtigte, die aus dem Prozeß der gesellschaftlichen Lebenserzeugung entspringende Quelle des Titels und aller auf ihm begründeten Transaktionen fort. Vom Standpunkt einer höhern ökonomischen Gesellschaftsformation wird das Privateigentum einzelner Individuen am Erdball ganz so abgeschmackt erscheinen wie das Privateigentum eines Menschen an einem andern Menschen. Selbst eine ganze Gesellschaft, eine Nation, ja alle gleichzeitigen Gesellschaften zusammengenommen, sind nicht Eigentümer der Erde. Sie sind nur ihre Besitzer, ihre Nutznießer, und haben sie als boni patres familias <gute Familienväter> den nachfolgenden Generationen verbessert zu hinterlassen.
two directions, then the title

Two cases must be kept apart. Either the rent flows from a monopoly price because a monopoly price of the products, or of the land itself, exists independently of the rent. Or the products are sold at a monopoly price because a rent exists. By a monopoly price we mean, in general, a price set only by the buyers' wish to buy and their ability to pay, independently of the price set by the general price of production and of the price set by the products' value. A vineyard producing wine of quite extraordinary quality — wine that can be produced at all only in relatively small quantities — carries a monopoly price. The amount by which that monopoly price exceeds the product's value is fixed solely by the wealth and the fancy of well-off wine-drinkers, and because of this monopoly price the grower would realize a considerable surplus profit. This surplus profit, which here flows from a monopoly price, turns into rent and falls in that form to the landowner, because of his title to this piece of the earth with its special properties. Here, then, the monopoly price creates the rent. The reverse — rent creating the monopoly price — would be the case if corn were sold not only above its price of production but above its value too, because of the barrier that landed property puts in the way of investing capital, without paying rent, on uncultivated land. Only the title that a number of people hold to property in the earth enables them to appropriate part of society's surplus labour as a tribute, and more and more of it as production develops. This is hidden because the capitalized rent — precisely this capitalized tribute — appears as the price of land, so that land can be sold like any other article of trade. So to the buyer his claim to the rent does not appear to have come to him for nothing, without the labour, risk and enterprise of capital, but to have been paid for with its equivalent. To him, as noted before, the rent appears simply as interest on the capital with which he bought the land and, with it, the claim to the rent. In just the same way it appears to a slaveholder who has bought a slave that his property in that person was acquired not through the institution of slavery as such but through the buying and selling of a commodity. But the sale does not create the title; it only transfers it. The title has to exist before it can be sold, and a series of sales, however often repeated, can no more create it than a single sale can. What created it in the first place was the relations of production. As soon as these reach the point where they must shed their skin, the material source of the title and of every transaction founded on it — the source that is economically and historically justified, springing from the process by which society produces its life — falls away. From the standpoint of a higher socioeconomic formation, private property of single individuals in the earth will appear just as absurd as private property of one human being in another. Not even a whole society, a nation, indeed all the societies alive at the same time taken together, are owners of the earth. They are only its possessors and beneficiaries, and like good heads of household they have to hand it on in an improved state to the generations that follow.

Kap. 46
Der Preis des Bodens kann steigen
The reader arrives from a contrast between rent that flows from a monopoly price and rent that would create one, and from land's price as capitalized tribute: the buyer sees rent as interest on money he paid, while sale only transfers a title the relations of production made. Setting that appearance aside, the question is what a movement in the price of land can show.
__________
*
Bei der folgenden Untersuchung des Bodenpreises sehn wir ab von allen Konkurrenzschwankungen, von allen Bodenspekulationen oder auch vom kleinen Grundeigentum, wo die Erde das Hauptinstrument der Produzenten bildet und daher zu jedem Preis von ihnen gekauft werden muß.
what the analysis sets aside

In what follows, when we look into the price of land, we leave out all the ups and downs of competition, all speculation in land, and also petty landownership, where the earth is the producers' main instrument and so has to be bought by them at any price.

I. Der Preis des Bodens kann steigen, ohne daß die Rente steigt; nämlich
case I: price can rise alone

I. The price of land can rise without the rent rising. Namely:

1. durch das bloße Fallen des Zinsfußes, welches bewirkt, daß die Rente teurer verkauft wird und daher die kapitalisierte Rente, der Bodenpreis, wächst;
falling interest sells rent dearer

(1) simply from a fall in the rate of interest. That makes the rent sell dearer, and so the capitalized rent, the price of land, grows;

2. weil der Zins des dem Boden einverleibten Kapitals wächst.
interest on capital in the land

(2) because the interest on the capital incorporated in the land grows.

II. Der Bodenpreis kann steigen, weil die Rente wächst.
case II: rent can lift price

II. The price of land can rise because rent grows.

Die Rente kann wachsen, weil der Preis des Bodenprodukts steigt, in welchem Fall immer die Rate der Differentialrente steigt, ob die Rente auf dem schlechtesten bebauten Boden groß, klein oder gar nicht vorhanden sei. Unter der Rate verstehn wir das Verhältnis des Teils des Mehrwerts, der sich in Rente verwandelt, zum vorgeschoßnen Kapital, welches das Bodenprodukt produziert. Es ist dies verschieden von dem Verhältnis des Surplusprodukts zum Gesamtprodukt, denn das Gesamtprodukt schließt nicht das ganze vorgeschoßne Kapital ein, nämlich nicht das fixe Kapital, das neben dem Produkt fortexistiert. Dagegen ist dies darin eingeschlossen, daß auf den Bodenarten, die eine Differentialrente tragen, ein wachsender Teil des Produkts sich in überschüssiges Surplusprodukt verwandelt. Auf dem schlechtesten Boden schafft die Preissteigerung des Bodenprodukts erst Rente und daher Preis des Bodens.
the rate of rent defined

Rent can grow because the price of the product of the land rises. In that case the rate of differential rent always rises, whether the rent on the worst cultivated land is large, small, or not there at all.

By "the rate" we mean the ratio between the part of surplus-value that turns into rent and the capital advanced to produce the product of the land. This is not the same as the ratio of surplus product to total product, since the total product does not include the whole capital advanced — it leaves out the fixed capital, which goes on existing alongside the product. What is included in this, on the other hand, is that on the kinds of land that carry a differential rent, a growing share of the product turns into excess surplus product. On the worst land, a rise in the price of the product of the land creates rent for the first time, and with it the price of land.

Die Rente kann aber auch wachsen, ohne daß der Preis des Bodenprodukts steigt. Er kann konstant bleiben oder selbst abnehmen.
rent can rise without dearer produce

But rent can also grow without the price of the product of the land rising. That price can stay constant, or even fall.

Wenn er konstant bleibt, so kann die Rente nur wachsen (von Monopolpreisen abgesehn), entweder weil bei gleich großer Kapitalanlage auf den alten Ländereien neue Ländereien besserer Qualität bebaut werden, die aber nur hinreichen, die gewachsene Nachfrage zu decken, so daß der regulierende Marktpreis unverändert bleibt. In diesem Fall steigt nicht der Preis der alten Ländereien, aber für den neu in Angriff genommenen Boden steigt der Preis über den des alten.
first way: better land taken up

If that price stays constant, then — leaving monopoly prices aside — rent can grow in only one of two ways. Either because, with just as much capital as before laid out on the old lands, new lands of better quality are cultivated, but only just enough to cover the increased demand, so that the governing market price stays unchanged. In this case the price of the old lands does not rise, but for the land newly taken in hand the price rises above that of the old.

Oder aber die Rente steigt, weil bei gleichbleibender relativer Ergiebigkeit und gleichbleibendem Marktpreis die Masse des den Boden exploitierenden Kapitals wächst. Obgleich daher die Rente im Verhältnis zum vorgeschoßnen Kapital dieselbe bleibt, verdoppelt sich z.B. ihre Masse, weil sich das Kapital selbst verdoppelt hat. Da kein Fallen des Preises eingetreten ist, wirft die zweite Kapitalanlage ebensogut wie die erste einen Surplusprofit ab, der sich nach Ablauf der Pachtzeit ebenfalls in Rente verwandelt. Die Masse der Rente steigt hier, weil die Masse des Rente erzeugenden Kapitals steigt. Die Behauptung, daß verschiedne sukzessive Kapitalanlagen auf derselben Bodenstrecke eine Rente nur erzeugen können, soweit ihr Ertrag ungleich ist und daher eine Differentialrente entsteht, kommt auf die Behauptung hinaus, daß, wenn zwei Kapitale von je 1.000 Pfd. St. auf zwei Feldern von gleicher Ergiebigkeit angelegt sind, nur eins derselben Rente abwerfen könne, obgleich diese beiden Felder zur bessern Bodenklasse gehören, die eine Differentialrente abwirft. (Die Masse des Rentals, die Gesamtrente eines Landes, wächst daher mit der Masse der Kapitalanlage, ohne daß der Preis des einzelnen Bodenstücks oder die Rentrate oder auch die Rentmasse auf dem einzelnen Bodenstücke notwendig wächst; die Masse des Rentals wächst in diesem Fall mit der räumlichen Ausbreitung der Kultur. Dies kann sogar mit dem Fallen der Rente auf den einzelnen Besitzungen verbunden sein.) Sonst käme diese Behauptung auf die andre hinaus, daß die Kapitalanlage auf zwei verschiednen Bodenstücken nebeneinander andern Gesetzen folge als die sukzessive Kapitalanlage auf demselben Bodenstück, während man doch gerade die Differentialrente ableitet aus der Identität des Gesetzes in beiden Fällen, aus dem Zuwachs der Ergiebigkeit der Kapitalanlage sowohl auf demselben Felde wie auf verschiednen Feldern. Die einzige Modifikation, die hier existiert und die übersehn wird, ist die, daß sukzessive Kapitalanlage bei ihrer Anwendung auf räumlich verschiednen Boden auf die Schranke des Grundeigentums stößt, was bei sukzessiven Kapitalanlagen auf demselben Boden nicht der Fall ist. Daher auch die entgegengesetzte Wirkung, wodurch diese verschiednen Formen der Anlage sich in der Praxis wechselseitig in Schranken halten. Es tritt hier nie ein Unterschied vom Kapital ein. Bleibt die Zusammensetzung des Kapitals dieselbe und ebenso die Rate des Mehrwerts, so bleibt die Profitrate unverändert, so daß bei verdoppeltem Kapital die Profitmasse sich verdoppelt. Ebenso bleibt unter den angenommenen Verhältnissen die Rentrate dieselbe. Wenn ein Kapital von 1.000 Pfd. St. eine Rente von x, wirft unter den vorausgesetzten Umständen eines von 2.000 Pfd. St. eine Rente von 2x ab. Aber mit Bezug auf die Bodenfläche berechnet, die unverändert geblieben ist, da der Annahme nach das doppelte Kapital in demselben Feld arbeitet, ist infolge des Steigens der Masse der Rente auch ihre Höhe gestiegen. Derselbe Acre, der 2 Pfd. St. Rente einbrachte, bringt jetzt 4 Pfd. St.41
second way: same rate, doubled mass

Or else the rent rises because, with the relative yield and the market price unchanged, the mass of capital exploiting the land grows. So although the rent stays the same in relation to the capital advanced, its mass doubles, for example, because the capital itself has doubled. Since the price has not fallen, the second investment of capital yields a surplus profit just as the first does, and when the lease runs out this too turns into rent. The mass of rent rises here because the mass of the capital that produces rent rises.

It is claimed that successive investments of capital on the same stretch of land can yield a rent only in so far as their yields differ, so that a differential rent arises. That comes down to saying that if two capitals of £1,000 each are laid out on two fields of equal yield, only one of them could yield rent — even though both fields belong to the better class of land, the class that does yield a differential rent. (So the mass of the rental, a country's total rent, grows with the mass of capital invested, without the price of the single piece of land, or the rate of rent, or even the mass of rent on the single piece necessarily growing; in this case the mass of the rental grows with the spread of cultivation over more ground. This can even go together with a fall in rent on individual holdings.) Otherwise the claim would come down to a different one: that capital laid out on two different pieces of land side by side obeys different laws from capital laid out one investment after another on the same piece — whereas differential rent is derived precisely from the law being the same in both cases, from the growing yield of capital invested on the same field and on different fields alike. The one modification that does exist here, and is overlooked, is that successive investment, when it goes to land in different places, runs into the barrier of landed property, which it does not when it goes to the same land. Hence, too, the opposite effect by which, in practice, these different forms of investment keep each other in check.

Here the case never differs from that of capital. If the composition of the capital stays the same, and so does the rate of surplus-value, the rate of profit stays unchanged, so that when the capital is doubled the mass of profit doubles. In the same way, under the conditions assumed, the rate of rent stays the same. If a capital of £1,000 yields a rent of x, then under these conditions one of £2,000 yields a rent of 2x. But reckoned on the land area — which has not changed, since by assumption the doubled capital works in the same field — the level of the rent has risen too, because its mass has risen. The same acre that brought £2 of rent now brings £4.

Kap. 46
Geldrente und Boden als inkommensurable Größen
The reader arrives from an analysis that has separated the price of land from rent and the mass of rent from its rate: a doubled capital can double the per-acre sum while the rate on capital is unchanged. What remains is the form in which that per-acre sum is stated. Marx asks what it means to measure money rent against land.
Das Verhältnis eines Teils des Mehrwerts, der Geldrente - denn das Geld ist der selbständige Ausdruck des Werts - zum Boden ist an sich abgeschmackt und irrationell; denn es sind inkommensurable Größen, die hier aneinander gemessen werden, ein bestimmter Gebrauchswert, Bodenstück von soundso viel Quadratfuß auf der einen Seite, und Wert, speziell Mehrwert auf der andern. Es drückt dies in der Tat nichts aus, als daß unter den gegebnen Verhältnissen das Eigentum an den Quadratfüßen Boden den Grundeigentümer befähigt, ein bestimmtes Quantum unbezahlter Arbeit abzufangen, die das in den Quadratfüßen wie ein Schwein in den Kartoffeln wühlende Kapital {hier steht im Ms. in Klammern, aber durchstrichen: Liebig} realisiert hat. Prima facie ist der Ausdruck aber derselbe, als wollte man vom Verhältnis einer Fünfpfundnote zum Durchmesser der Erde sprechen. Die Vermittlungen der irrationellen Formen, worin bestimmte ökonomische Verhältnisse erscheinen und sich praktisch zusammenfassen, gehn die praktischen Träger dieser Verhältnisse in ihrem Handel und Wandel jedoch nichts an; und da sie gewohnt sind, sich darin zu bewegen, findet ihr Verstand nicht im geringsten Anstoß daran. Ein vollkommner Widerspruch hat durchaus nichts Geheimnisvolles für sie. In den dem innern Zusammenhang entfremdeten und, für sich isoliert genommen, abgeschmackten Erscheinungsformen fühlen sie sich ebenfalls so zu Haus wie ein Fisch im Wasser. Es gilt hier, was Hegel mit Bezug auf gewisse mathematische Formeln sagt, daß, was der gemeine Menschenverstand irrationell findet, das Rationelle, und sein Rationelles die Irrationalität selbst ist.
the absurd rent-to-land ratio

The ratio of one part of surplus-value — money rent, since money is the independent expression of value — to land is in itself absurd and irrational, because what is being measured against each other here are magnitudes with no common measure: on one side a particular use-value, a plot of so many square feet; on the other, value, and specifically surplus-value. All it really expresses is that under the given relations owning those square feet enables the landowner to intercept a definite quantity of unpaid labour, which capital, rooting about in the square feet like a pig in potatoes, has realized. At first sight, though, the expression is the same as if one were talking about the ratio of a £5 note to the diameter of the earth. But the mediations of these irrational forms — the forms in which particular economic relations appear and are summed up in practice — are no concern of the practical agents of these relations in their everyday dealings; and since they are used to moving within them, it does not trouble their minds in the least. A complete contradiction holds no mystery for them. They feel just as much at home as a fish in water in forms of appearance that are estranged from their inner connection and that, each taken by itself, are absurd. What Hegel says of certain mathematical formulas applies here: what ordinary common sense finds irrational is the rational, and what it finds rational is irrationality itself.

Mit Bezug auf die Bodenfläche selbst betrachtet, drückt sich also das Steigen in der Masse der Rente aus, ganz wie ein Steigen in der Rate der Rente, und daher die Verlegenheit, wenn die Bedingungen, die den einen Fall erklären würden, bei dem andern fehlen.
amount and rate look alike

So, reckoned on the land area itself, a rise in the amount of rent shows up exactly like a rise in its rate — hence the embarrassment whenever the conditions that would explain the one kind of rise are missing in a case of the other kind.

Kap. 46
Bodenpreis kann steigen, selbst wenn der Produktpreis fällt
The reader arrives with a warning: money rent measured against land is an irrational expression, and, reckoned on the land area itself, a rise in the amount of rent shows up just like a rise in its rate. Marx asks whether the price of land can rise while the price of what it produces falls, lays out the routes, and follows the arithmetic far enough to say what a larger sum per acre presupposes without sale above price of production or value. The result becomes a guard: a rise in the price of land does not by itself prove a rise in rent, and a rise in rent, which always brings a rise in the price of land, does not by itself prove dearer products.
Der Bodenpreis kann aber auch steigen, selbst wenn der Preis des Bodenprodukts abnimmt.
land price can rise, produce cheaper

The price of land, though, can also rise even while the price of what the land produces falls.

In diesem Fall kann sich durch weitre Differenzierung die Differentialrente, und daher der Bodenpreis, der bessern Ländereien vermehrt haben. Oder wenn dies nicht der Fall ist, kann bei vermehrter Produktivkraft der Arbeit der Preis des Bodenprodukts gefallen sein, so daß aber die vermehrte Produktion dies mehr als aufwiegt. Nimm an, das Quarter habe 60 sh. gekostet. Werden von demselben Acre mit demselben Kapital 2 qrs. statt einem produziert, und das qr. falle auf 40 sh., so bringen 2 qrs. 80 sh., so daß der Wert des Produkts desselben Kapitals auf demselben Acre um ein Drittel gestiegen, obgleich der Preis per qr. um ein Drittel gefallen ist. Wie dies möglich, ohne daß das Produkt über seinem Produktionspreis oder Wert verkauft wird, wurde bei der Differentialrente entwickelt. Es ist in der Tat nur in zwei Arten möglich. Entweder schlechter Boden wird außer Konkurrenz gesetzt, aber der Preis des bessern Bodens wächst, wenn die Differentialrente wächst, die allgemeine Verbesserung also ungleichmäßig auf die verschiednen Bodenarten wirkt. Oder auf dem schlechtesten Boden drückt sich derselbe Produktionspreis (und derselbe Wert, falls absolute Rente gezahlt wird) wegen gesteigerter Produktivität der Arbeit in größrer Masse Produkt aus. Das Produkt stellt nach wie vor denselben Wert dar, aber der Preis seiner aliquoten Teile ist gefallen, während ihre Anzahl sich vermehrt hat. Wenn dasselbe Kapital angewandt, ist dies unmöglich; denn in diesem Fall drückt sich stets derselbe Wert in jeder beliebigen Menge Produkt aus. Es ist aber möglich, wenn ein Kapitalzuschuß gemacht worden ist für Gips, Guano etc., kurz, für Verbesserungen, deren Wirkung sich über mehrere Jahre erstreckt. Die Bedingung ist, daß der Preis des einzelnen qr. zwar fällt, aber nicht in demselben Verhältnis, wie die Zahl der qrs. wächst.
possible in only two ways

In this case, further differentiation may have increased the differential rent of the better lands, and with it the price of those lands. Or, if that is not the case, a rise in the productivity of labour may have brought down the price of what the land produces, so that the increased production more than outweighs it. Suppose a quarter cost 60s. If the same acre, worked with the same capital, produces 2 qrs instead of 1, and the quarter falls to 40s., then 2 qrs bring 80s.; so the value of the product of the same capital on the same acre has risen by a third, even though the price per quarter has fallen by a third. How this is possible without the product being sold above its price of production or its value was worked out when we dealt with differential rent. In fact it is possible in only two ways. Either worse land is put out of competition, but the price of the better land rises if its differential rent grows — the general improvement therefore acting unevenly on the different kinds of land. Or, on the worst land, the same price of production (and the same value, if absolute rent is paid) comes to be expressed, through the raised productivity of labour, in a larger mass of product. The product still represents the same value as before, but the price of each of its equal parts has fallen while their number has grown. If the same capital is used, this is impossible, since the same value is then always expressed in whatever quantity of product there is. It is possible, however, if an extra capital has been laid out on gypsum, guano and the like — in short, on improvements whose effect stretches over several years. The condition is that the price of the individual quarter falls, but not in the same proportion as the number of quarters grows.

III. Diese verschiednen Bedingungen des Steigens der Rente und daher des Bodenpreises überhaupt oder für einzelne Bodenarten können z.T. konkurrieren, z.T. schließen sie einander aus und können nur abwechselnd wirken. Es folgt aber aus dem Entwickelten, daß aus einem Steigen des Bodenpreises nicht ohne weiteres auf ein Steigen der Rente und daß aus einem Steigen der Rente, welches immer ein Steigen des Bodenpreises nach sich zieht, nicht ohne weiteres auf ein Steigen der Bodenprodukte geschlossen werden kann.42
two inferences that are not automatic

III. These various conditions under which rent can rise, and therefore the price of land — either in general or for particular kinds of land — can in part compete with one another; in part they exclude one another, and they can only take effect by turns. But it follows from what has been worked out that a rise in the price of land does not by itself mean a rise in rent, and that a rise in rent — which always brings a rise in the price of land with it — does not by itself mean that the products of the land have become dearer.

Kap. 46
Die Erde als Produktionsinstrument
The reader arrives from the finding that the price of land can rise while the product's price falls, and that the conditions lifting rent and the price of land may partly compete, partly exclude one another and work by turns. Two inferences were refused there: a higher price of land does not by itself prove higher rent, and higher rent does not by itself prove dearer products. What is left open is the question Marx's next step turns on. The shallow objection that a bounded field cannot absorb more capital was called in instead of the real natural causes of exhaustion: what follows from the earth acting as an instrument of production?
__________
*
Statt auf die wirklichen naturgemäßen Ursachen der Erschöpfung des Bodens zurückzugehn, welche übrigens sämtlichen Ökonomen, die über Differentialrente geschrieben haben, unbekannt waren wegen des Zustands der Agrikulturchemie zu ihrer Zeit, ist die flache Auffassung zu Hilfe genommen worden, daß man nicht jede beliebige Masse Kapital in einem räumlich begrenzten Feld anlegen kann; wie z.B. die "Edinburgh Review" <1. Aufl. "Westminster Review"> dem Richard Jones entgegenhielt, daß man nicht ganz England durch Bebauung von Soho Square füttern kann. Wenn dies als ein besondrer Nachteil der Agrikultur angesehn wird, so ist gerade das Umgekehrte wahr. Es können hier sukzessive Kapitalanlagen fruchtbringend angelegt werden, weil die Erde selbst als Produktionsinstrument wirkt, was bei einer Fabrik, wo sie nur als Unterlage, als Platz, als räumliche Operationsbasis fungiert, nicht oder nur innerhalb sehr enger Grenzen der Fall ist. Man kann zwar - und dies tut die große Industrie - in einem, verglichen mit dem parzellierten Handwerk, kleinen Raum eine große Produktionsanlage konzentrieren. Aber, die Entwicklungsstufe der Produktivkraft gegeben, ist immer ein bestimmter Raum erforderlich, und das Bauen in die Höhe hat auch seine bestimmten praktischen Grenzen. Über diese hinaus erfordert Ausdehnung der Produktion auch Erweiterung des Bodenraums. Das in Maschinen usw. angelegte fixe Kapital verbessert sich nicht durch den Gebrauch, sondern verschleißt im Gegenteil. Infolge neuer Erfindungen können auch hier einzelne Verbesserungen angebracht werden, aber die Entwicklung der Produktivkraft als gegeben vorausgesetzt, kann sich die Maschine nur verschlechtern. Bei rascher Entwicklung der Produktivkraft muß die ganze alte Maschinerie durch vorteilhaftere ersetzt werden, also verlorengehn. Die Erde dagegen, richtig behandelt, verbessert sich fortwährend. Der Vorzug der Erde, daß sukzessive Kapitalanlagen Vorteil bringen können, ohne daß die frühern verlorengehn, schließt zugleich die Möglichkeit der Ertragsdifferenz dieser sukzessiven Kapitalanlagen ein.
the shallow limited-field notion rejected

Rather than a return to the real natural causes of soil exhaustion — causes that, incidentally, were unknown to every economist who wrote on differential rent, given the state of agricultural chemistry in their time — what was called in to help was a shallow notion: that you cannot lay out just any amount of capital in a field of limited size. The Edinburgh Review, for example, threw it back at Richard Jones that the whole of England could not be fed by cultivating Soho Square. But if limited space is taken as a special disadvantage of farming, the opposite is true. Successive capital investments can bear fruit here, because the earth itself works as an instrument of production. With a factory that is not so — or only within very narrow limits: there the earth serves only as foundation, site, spatial base of operations. One can indeed — and big industry does — pack a large productive installation into a space that is small compared with fragmented handicraft work. But take the level of productivity as given, and a definite amount of space is always needed; building upward, too, has its definite practical limits. Beyond those, expanding production means expanding the land area too. Fixed capital laid out in machines and the like is not improved by use; it wears out. New inventions can bring particular improvements here too, but hold the development of productivity fixed and a machine can only get worse. When productivity develops fast, the whole old machinery must be replaced by more advantageous machinery, and so is lost. The earth, by contrast, improves continually when it is treated correctly. And the earth's advantage — that successive capital investments can bring benefit without the earlier ones being lost — includes the possibility of a difference in yield between those successive investments.

Chapter 46
Rent of Buildings. Rent of Mines. Price of Land

At this chapter's central claim on land price and rent, the English departs from the German in one place:

  • The German says a rise in rent does not by itself show a rise in the land's products — read in the chapter's sequence, their price; the English prints 'does not invariably mean an increase in its products'. — see the card at Kap. 46 p22
Kap. 46
Rent of Building Land and of Mines
The reader arrives carrying absolute rent fixed as a part of surplus-value that landed property intercepts, not a charge added to the buyer's price, and with the test of equally good land showing that differential rent needs inequality. What Marx takes up next is the reach of differential rent's law: whether, wherever rent exists at all, it follows the same laws as in agriculture, on building land and in mines as on the farm.
Wherever rent exists, differential rent always appears and always follows the same laws as it does in agriculture. Wherever natural forces can be monopolized and give the industrialist who makes use of them a surplus profit, whether a waterfall, a rich mine, fishing grounds or a well-situated building site, the person indicated as the owner of these natural objects, by virtue of his title to a portion of the earth, seizes this surplus profit from the functioning capital in the form of rent. As far as land for building is concerned, Adam Smith has discussed how the basis of its rent, as with all non-agricultural land, is governed by agricultural rent proper (Book I, Chapter XI, 2 and 3). This rent is characterized first by the preponderant influence that location exerts here on the differential rent (very important, for example, in the case of vineyards, and building land in big towns); secondly, by the palpable and complete passivity displayed by the owner, whose activity consists simply in exploiting advances in social development (particularly in the case of mines), towards which he does not contribute and in which he risks nothing, unlike the industrial capitalist; finally, by the prevalence of a monopoly price in many cases, and particularly the most shameless exploitation of poverty (for poverty is a more fruitful source for house-rent than the mines of Potosí were for Spain);38 the tremendous power this gives landed property when it is combined together with industrial capital in the same hands enables capital practically to exclude workers engaged in a struggle over wages from the very earth itself as their habitat.39 One section of society here demands a tribute from the other for the very right to live on the earth, just as landed property in general involves the right of the proprietors to exploit the earth’s surface, the bowels of the earth, the air and thereby the maintenance and development of life. The rise in population, and the consequent growing need for housing, is not the only factor that necessarily increases the rent on buildings. So too does the development of fixed capital, which is either incorporated into the earth or strikes root in it, like all industrial buildings, railways, factories, docks, etc., which rest on it. It is impossible even with Carey’s good intentions to confuse house-rent, in as much as this is interest and amortization for the capital invested in the house, with rent of land pure and simple, particularly when, as in England, the landowner and the speculative builder are completely different persons. Two elements come into consideration here: on the one hand the exploitation of the earth for the purpose of reproduction or extraction, on the other the space that is required as an element for any production and any human activity. On both counts landed property demands its tribute. The demand for building land raises the value of land as space and foundation, while at the same time there is a growing demand for those elements of the earth’s physical constitution that serve as building material.40
rent generalized; the owner intercepts

Wherever there is rent at all, differential rent turns up everywhere and follows the same laws everywhere as differential rent in agriculture. Wherever natural forces can be monopolized and secure a surplus profit to the industrialist who uses them — a waterfall, a rich mine, waters full of fish, a well-placed building site — the man whom a title to a piece of the globe stamps as owner of these natural objects intercepts that surplus profit from the functioning capital, in the form of rent. As for land used for building, Adam Smith set out how the basis of its rent, like that of all non-agricultural land, is regulated by agricultural rent proper. This rent is marked out, first, by the overwhelming influence that location has here on the differential rent (very great, for example, in wine-growing and for building sites in big cities); second, by how plainly the owner is wholly passive — all he does (in mining above all) is exploit the progress of social development, to which he contributes nothing and in which he risks nothing, unlike the industrial capitalist, who does; and finally, by the prevalence in many cases of monopoly price — and, above all, of the most shameless exploitation of poverty (poverty is a richer source of house-rent than the mines of Potosí ever were for Spain) — and by the enormous power this landed property gives when it is joined with industrial capital in the same hands — the power, in the fight over wages, practically to shut the workers out of the earth as their dwelling place. Here one part of society demands a tribute from the other for the right to be allowed to live on the earth, just as landed property in general includes the owners' right to exploit the body of the earth, its bowels, the air, and with them the maintenance and development of life itself. Building rent necessarily rises not only with the growth of population, and with it the growing need for housing, but also with the development of fixed capital that is built into the earth or takes root in it and rests on it: all industrial buildings, railways, warehouses, factories, docks and so on. Here, even with the goodwill of a Carey, no one can confuse house-rent — in so far as it is interest on, and amortization of, the capital put into the house — with the rent for the bare ground, especially when, as in England, the landowner and the speculative builder are quite different people. Two things count here: on one side, the earth exploited for reproduction or extraction; on the other, the space that every kind of production and all human activity requires. On both counts landed property demands its tribute. The demand for building land raises the value of the ground as space and foundation, while by the same token the demand grows for those parts of the earth's body that serve as building material.

We have already given an example of how in cities that are experiencing rapid growth, particularly where building is carried on factory-style, as in London, it is ground-rent and not the houses themselves that forms the real basic object of speculative building; see Volume 2, Chapter 12, pp. 311-12, the evidence of a major London speculative builder, Edward Capps, before the Bank Acts Committee of 1857. He says there, no. 5435: ‘I think a man who wishes to rise in the world can hardly expect to rise by following out a fair trade ... it is necessary for him to add speculative building to it, and that must be done not on a small scale; ... for the builder makes very little profit out of the buildings themselves; he makes the principal part of the profit out of the improved ground-rents. Perhaps he takes a piece of ground, and agrees to give £300 a year for it; by laying it out with care, and putting certain descriptions of buildings upon it, he may succeed in making £400 or £450 a year out of it, and his profit would be the increased ground-rent of £100 or £150 a year, rather than the profit of the buildings which ..., in many instances, he scarcely looks at at all.’
the example: Capps's evidence

In fast-growing cities — above all where building is run like a factory, as in London — what building speculation is really after is the ground-rent, not the house. We gave an example of this in Volume II, chapter XII: the evidence of Edward Capps, a big London speculative builder, to the Bank Acts Committee of 1857. In his evidence, no. 5435, he says:

English joined this paragraph
Capps on the builder's main profit

In Edward Capps's view, a man who wants to get on in the world can hardly expect to do it by sticking to plain, honest trade; he must also, of necessity, build on speculation, and on a large scale. For the builder, he says, makes very little profit out of the buildings themselves and makes his main profit out of the increased ground-rents. Say, Capps suggests, the builder takes a piece of land and pays £300 a year for it. If he builds the right class of houses on it to a careful plan, he may succeed in getting £400 or £450 a year out of it, and on Capps's reckoning his profit would then lie far more in the increased ground-rent of £100 or £150 a year than in the profit on the buildings — which in many cases he hardly takes into account at all.

It should not be forgotten in this connection that after the leasehold has expired, and this is ninety-nine years at the most, the land together with all the buildings on it, and with a ground-rent that has in the meantime generally doubled, tripled or more, reverts from the speculative builder or his heir to the original ultimate landowner.
the lease ends, land reverts

And it should not be forgotten that when the lease runs out — usually after ninety-nine years — the land, with all the buildings standing on it and with a ground-rent that has by then usually risen to more than twice or three times what it was, falls back from the speculative builder or his legal successor to the original ultimate landowner.

Rent of mines is determined just as is agricultural rent.
mining rent proper, like agricultural rent

Mining rent proper is determined exactly like agricultural rent.

‘There are some of which the produce is barely sufficient to pay the labour, and replace, together with its ordinary profits, the stock employed in working them. They afford some profit to the undertaker of the work, but no rent to the landlord. They can be wrought advantageously by nobody but the landlord, who, being himself undertaker of the work, gets the ordinary profit of the capital which he employs in it. Many coalmines in Scotland are wrought in this manner, and can be wrought in no other. The landlord will allow nobody else to work them without paying some rent, and nobody can afford to pay any’ (Adam Smith, Book I, Chapter XI, II [p. 270]).
Smith's mines that pay no rent

In Adam Smith's account, there are some mines whose product barely suffices to pay the labour and to replace the capital laid out in them together with the ordinary profit. They give the man who runs them some profit, he says, but no rent to the landowner. They can be worked with advantage only by the landowner himself, running them as his own concern and making the ordinary profit on the capital he puts in. Many coal mines in Scotland, Smith goes on, are worked in this way and can be worked in no other. The landowner, as he puts it, lets no one else work them without paying rent — and no one can pay rent for them.

Kap. 46
How the Price of Land Conceals Tribute
The reader arrives carrying the generalization that differential rent follows agricultural law wherever rent exists, and that building and mining rent are marked by location, the owner's passivity, and the power title gives over dwelling and extraction. What was still missing is the direction of dependence. Marx now settles it: whether a monopoly price is the source of rent or only its possible consequence, and why the price of land, by presenting capitalized tribute as a paid equivalent, hides that a title lets some people appropriate part of society's surplus labour. The title's historical source, and its transience, come into view here.
It is necessary to distinguish whether the rent flows from an independent monopoly price for the products or the land itself, or whether the products are sold at a monopoly price because there is a rent. By monopoly price here we mean any price determined simply by the desire and ability of the buyer to pay, independently of the price of the product as determined by price of production and value. A vineyard bears a monopoly price if it produces wine which is of quite exceptional quality but can be produced only in a relatively small quantity. By virtue of this monopoly price, the wine-grower whose excess over the value of his product is determined purely and simply by the wealth and the preference of fashionable wine-drinkers can realize a substantial surplus profit. This surplus profit, which in this case flows from a monopoly price, is transformed into rent and accrues in this form to the landowner by virtue of his title to the portion of the earth endowed with these special properties. Here, therefore, the monopoly price creates the rent. Conversely, the rent would create the monopoly price if corn were sold not only above its price of production but also above its value, as a result of the barrier that landed property opposes against the rent-free investment of capital on untilled land. The fact that it is only the title a number of people have to property in the earth that enables them to appropriate a part of society’s surplus labour as tribute, and in an ever growing measure as production develops, is concealed by the fact that the capitalized rent, i.e. precisely this capitalized tribute, appears as the price of land, which can be bought and sold just like any other item of trade. For the buyer, therefore, his claim to rent does not appear as something obtained for nothing, without labour, risk or the entrepreneurial spirit of capital, but rather as the return for his equivalent. Rent seems to him, as we have already noted, simply interest on the capital with which he has purchased the land, and with it the claim to rent. In exactly the same way, it appears to the slaveowner who has bought a Negro slave that his property in the Negro is created not by the institution of slavery as such but rather by the purchase and sale of this commodity. But the purchase does not produce the title; it simply transfers it. The title must be there before it can be bought, and neither one sale nor a series of such sales, their constant repetition, can create this title. It was entirely created by the relations of production. Once these have reached the point where they have to be sloughed off, then the material source, the economically and historically justified source of the title that arises from the process of life’s social production, disappears, and with it all transactions based on it. From the standpoint of a higher socioeconomic formation, the private property of particular individuals in the earth will appear just as absurd as the private property of one man in other men. Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations, as boni patres familias.
two directions, then the title

Two cases must be kept apart. Either the rent flows from a monopoly price because a monopoly price of the products, or of the land itself, exists independently of the rent. Or the products are sold at a monopoly price because a rent exists. By a monopoly price we mean, in general, a price set only by the buyers' wish to buy and their ability to pay, independently of the price set by the general price of production and of the price set by the products' value. A vineyard producing wine of quite extraordinary quality — wine that can be produced at all only in relatively small quantities — carries a monopoly price. The amount by which that monopoly price exceeds the product's value is fixed solely by the wealth and the fancy of well-off wine-drinkers, and because of this monopoly price the grower would realize a considerable surplus profit. This surplus profit, which here flows from a monopoly price, turns into rent and falls in that form to the landowner, because of his title to this piece of the earth with its special properties. Here, then, the monopoly price creates the rent. The reverse — rent creating the monopoly price — would be the case if corn were sold not only above its price of production but above its value too, because of the barrier that landed property puts in the way of investing capital, without paying rent, on uncultivated land. Only the title that a number of people hold to property in the earth enables them to appropriate part of society's surplus labour as a tribute, and more and more of it as production develops. This is hidden because the capitalized rent — precisely this capitalized tribute — appears as the price of land, so that land can be sold like any other article of trade. So to the buyer his claim to the rent does not appear to have come to him for nothing, without the labour, risk and enterprise of capital, but to have been paid for with its equivalent. To him, as noted before, the rent appears simply as interest on the capital with which he bought the land and, with it, the claim to the rent. In just the same way it appears to a slaveholder who has bought a slave that his property in that person was acquired not through the institution of slavery as such but through the buying and selling of a commodity. But the sale does not create the title; it only transfers it. The title has to exist before it can be sold, and a series of sales, however often repeated, can no more create it than a single sale can. What created it in the first place was the relations of production. As soon as these reach the point where they must shed their skin, the material source of the title and of every transaction founded on it — the source that is economically and historically justified, springing from the process by which society produces its life — falls away. From the standpoint of a higher socioeconomic formation, private property of single individuals in the earth will appear just as absurd as private property of one human being in another. Not even a whole society, a nation, indeed all the societies alive at the same time taken together, are owners of the earth. They are only its possessors and beneficiaries, and like good heads of household they have to hand it on in an improved state to the generations that follow.

Kap. 46
Ways the Price of Land May Rise
The reader arrives from a contrast between rent that flows from a monopoly price and rent that would create one, and from land's price as capitalized tribute: the buyer sees rent as interest on money he paid, while sale only transfers a title the relations of production made. Setting that appearance aside, the question is what a movement in the price of land can show.
*
*
In the following analysis of the price of land we disregard all fluctuations due to competition, all speculation in land, and even petty landownership where the earth forms the major instrument of the producers and must therefore be bought by them at some price or other.
what the analysis sets aside

In what follows, when we look into the price of land, we leave out all the ups and downs of competition, all speculation in land, and also petty landownership, where the earth is the producers' main instrument and so has to be bought by them at any price.

I. The price of land may rise without an increase in rent:
case I: price can rise alone

I. The price of land can rise without the rent rising. Namely:

(1) merely through a fall in the rate of interest, which means that rent is sold more dearly, and so capitalized rent, the price of land, increases;
falling interest sells rent dearer

(1) simply from a fall in the rate of interest. That makes the rent sell dearer, and so the capitalized rent, the price of land, grows;

(2) because of a growth in the interest on the capital incorporated into the land.
interest on capital in the land

(2) because the interest on the capital incorporated in the land grows.

II. The price of land may rise because the rent increases.
case II: rent can lift price

II. The price of land can rise because rent grows.

The rent may increase because the price of the product of the land rises, in which case the rate of differential rent always rises, whether the rent on the worst cultivated land is high, low or non-existent. By the rate of differential rent we mean the ratio between the part of surplus-value that is transformed into rent, and the capital advanced to produce the agricultural product. This is different from the ratio between the surplus product and the total product, for the total product does not include all the capital advanced, i.e. it does not include the fixed capital, which continues to exist alongside the product. It is implied in this, however, that on those types of land that bear a differential rent a growing portion of the product is transformed into excess surplus product. On the worst land, it is the rise in price of the product of the land that creates rent for the first time and hence creates the price of land.
the rate of rent defined

Rent can grow because the price of the product of the land rises. In that case the rate of differential rent always rises, whether the rent on the worst cultivated land is large, small, or not there at all.

By "the rate" we mean the ratio between the part of surplus-value that turns into rent and the capital advanced to produce the product of the land. This is not the same as the ratio of surplus product to total product, since the total product does not include the whole capital advanced — it leaves out the fixed capital, which goes on existing alongside the product. What is included in this, on the other hand, is that on the kinds of land that carry a differential rent, a growing share of the product turns into excess surplus product. On the worst land, a rise in the price of the product of the land creates rent for the first time, and with it the price of land.

But rent can also grow without any rise in the price of the agricultural product. This can remain constant or even decline.
rent can rise without dearer produce

But rent can also grow without the price of the product of the land rising. That price can stay constant, or even fall.

If it remains constant, rent may grow (leaving aside monopoly prices) because new lands of better quality are cultivated along with equally large capital investments on the older lands, which however are sufficient only to meet the increased demand, so that the governing market price remains unchanged. In this case, the price of the older lands does not rise, but the price of land newly taken up rises above that of the old.
first way: better land taken up

If that price stays constant, then — leaving monopoly prices aside — rent can grow in only one of two ways. Either because, with just as much capital as before laid out on the old lands, new lands of better quality are cultivated, but only just enough to cover the increased demand, so that the governing market price stays unchanged. In this case the price of the old lands does not rise, but for the land newly taken in hand the price rises above that of the old.

Alternatively, however, rent may rise because with the relative yield remaining the same, and the market price too, the amount of capital exploiting the land grows. Thus even if the rent remains the same in relation to the capital advanced, it might double in amount, say, because the capital itself has doubled. Since there is no fall in the price, the second capital investment yields a surplus profit just as much as the first, which is similarly transformed into rent once the term of the tenancy expires. The amount of rent here rises because the amount of capital producing rent does. The contention that different successive capital investments on the same stretch of land can produce a rent only in so far as their yield is uneven, and hence a differential rent arises, would imply that if two capitals of £1,000 each are invested on two fields of equal productivity only one of them can yield rent, even when these two fields belong to the better class of land which does yield a differential rent. (The sum of the rental, therefore, the total rent of a country, then grows with the amount of capital invested without a necessary rise in the price of the individual unit of land or in its rate or even mass of rent; the rental grows in its total amount in this case in line with the spatial expansion of agriculture. This can even be combined with a fall in the rent on individual holdings.) Were this not so, this contention would mean that capital investments on two different pieces of land alongside one another would obey different laws from successive capital investments on the same piece of land, although we have precisely derived differential rent from an identical law in both cases, from the growth in productivity of capital investment both on the same field and on different fields. The only modification here, which is overlooked, is that when successive capital investments are applied to land in different locations, they come up against the barrier of landed property, which is not the case with successive capital investments on the same land. This is the reason for the opposing tendencies by which these different forms of investment in practice set barriers to one another. There is no difference in the capital involved here. If the composition of capital remains the same, and similarly the rate of surplus-value, the rate of profit remains unaltered, so that with twice the capital there is twice the amount of profit. The rate of rent also remains the same under these conditions. If a capital of £1,000 yields a rent x, then under the conditions assumed here one of £2,000 yields a rent of 2x. But in relation to the area, it remains unchanged, since by our assumption the doubled capital working in the same field has also risen to its level as a result of the rise in the amount of rent. The same acre that previously brought in £2 rent now brings in £4.41
second way: same rate, doubled mass

Or else the rent rises because, with the relative yield and the market price unchanged, the mass of capital exploiting the land grows. So although the rent stays the same in relation to the capital advanced, its mass doubles, for example, because the capital itself has doubled. Since the price has not fallen, the second investment of capital yields a surplus profit just as the first does, and when the lease runs out this too turns into rent. The mass of rent rises here because the mass of the capital that produces rent rises.

It is claimed that successive investments of capital on the same stretch of land can yield a rent only in so far as their yields differ, so that a differential rent arises. That comes down to saying that if two capitals of £1,000 each are laid out on two fields of equal yield, only one of them could yield rent — even though both fields belong to the better class of land, the class that does yield a differential rent. (So the mass of the rental, a country's total rent, grows with the mass of capital invested, without the price of the single piece of land, or the rate of rent, or even the mass of rent on the single piece necessarily growing; in this case the mass of the rental grows with the spread of cultivation over more ground. This can even go together with a fall in rent on individual holdings.) Otherwise the claim would come down to a different one: that capital laid out on two different pieces of land side by side obeys different laws from capital laid out one investment after another on the same piece — whereas differential rent is derived precisely from the law being the same in both cases, from the growing yield of capital invested on the same field and on different fields alike. The one modification that does exist here, and is overlooked, is that successive investment, when it goes to land in different places, runs into the barrier of landed property, which it does not when it goes to the same land. Hence, too, the opposite effect by which, in practice, these different forms of investment keep each other in check.

Here the case never differs from that of capital. If the composition of the capital stays the same, and so does the rate of surplus-value, the rate of profit stays unchanged, so that when the capital is doubled the mass of profit doubles. In the same way, under the conditions assumed, the rate of rent stays the same. If a capital of £1,000 yields a rent of x, then under these conditions one of £2,000 yields a rent of 2x. But reckoned on the land area — which has not changed, since by assumption the doubled capital works in the same field — the level of the rent has risen too, because its mass has risen. The same acre that brought £2 of rent now brings £4.

Kap. 46
Money Rent and Land as Incommensurable Quantities
The reader arrives from an analysis that has separated the price of land from rent and the mass of rent from its rate: a doubled capital can double the per-acre sum while the rate on capital is unchanged. What remains is the form in which that per-acre sum is stated. Marx asks what it means to measure money rent against land.
The proportion of one part of the surplus-value, the money rent (for money is the independent expression of value), to the land is as it stands absurd and irrational; for it is incommensurable quantities that are measured against one another here, a particular use-value on the one hand, a piece of land of so and so many square feet, and value, in particular surplus-value, on the other. All this means in actual fact is that, under the given conditions, the ownership of these square feet of land enables the landowner to seize a certain amount of unpaid labour, which capital has realized by rooting in the soil like a pig in potatoes. Prima facie, however, the expression is as if one were to speak of the ratio of a £5 note to the diameter of the earth. But these irrational forms in which certain economic relationships appear and are grasped in practice do not bother the practical bearers of these relationships in their everyday dealings; since they are accustomed to operating within these forms, it does not strike them as anything worth thinking about. A complete contradiction holds nothing at all mysterious for them. In forms of appearance that are estranged from their inner connection and, taken in isolation, are absurd, they feel as much at home as a fish in water. What Hegel says about certain mathematical formulae applies here too, namely that what the common human understanding finds irrational is in fact rational, and what it finds rational is irrational.
the absurd rent-to-land ratio

The ratio of one part of surplus-value — money rent, since money is the independent expression of value — to land is in itself absurd and irrational, because what is being measured against each other here are magnitudes with no common measure: on one side a particular use-value, a plot of so many square feet; on the other, value, and specifically surplus-value. All it really expresses is that under the given relations owning those square feet enables the landowner to intercept a definite quantity of unpaid labour, which capital, rooting about in the square feet like a pig in potatoes, has realized. At first sight, though, the expression is the same as if one were talking about the ratio of a £5 note to the diameter of the earth. But the mediations of these irrational forms — the forms in which particular economic relations appear and are summed up in practice — are no concern of the practical agents of these relations in their everyday dealings; and since they are used to moving within them, it does not trouble their minds in the least. A complete contradiction holds no mystery for them. They feel just as much at home as a fish in water in forms of appearance that are estranged from their inner connection and that, each taken by itself, are absurd. What Hegel says of certain mathematical formulas applies here: what ordinary common sense finds irrational is the rational, and what it finds rational is irrationality itself.

As far as the land area itself is concerned, a rise in the amount of rent is thus expressed in the same way as a rise in the rate of rent, hence the embarrassment when the conditions that would explain the one case are absent in the other.
amount and rate look alike

So, reckoned on the land area itself, a rise in the amount of rent shows up exactly like a rise in its rate — hence the embarrassment whenever the conditions that would explain the one kind of rise are missing in a case of the other kind.

Kap. 46
Land Price Can Rise Even If Produce Cheapens
The reader arrives with a warning: money rent measured against land is an irrational expression, and, reckoned on the land area itself, a rise in the amount of rent shows up just like a rise in its rate. Marx asks whether the price of land can rise while the price of what it produces falls, lays out the routes, and follows the arithmetic far enough to say what a larger sum per acre presupposes without sale above price of production or value. The result becomes a guard: a rise in the price of land does not by itself prove a rise in rent, and a rise in rent, which always brings a rise in the price of land, does not by itself prove dearer products.
But the price of land can rise even if the price of its product declines.
land price can rise, produce cheaper

The price of land, though, can also rise even while the price of what the land produces falls.

In this case, the differential rent may have increased by a further differentiation, and with it the price of the better lands. Or, if this is not the case, increased productivity of labour may have led to a fall in the price of the product, but with the increased production more than compensating for this. Assume that 1 qr costs 60s. If 2 qrs were produced on the same acre with the same capital instead of 1 qr, and the cost fell to 40s., then 2 qrs would fetch 80s., so that the value of the product of the same capital on the same acre would have risen by a third, even though the price per qr had fallen by a third. The way in which this is possible even though the product is not sold above its price of production or its value was expounded by us in dealing with differential rent. In actual fact, it is possible in only two ways. Either poor land is withdrawn from competition, but the price of the better land rises if the differential rent grows, so that the general improvement has had an uneven effect on the different types of land; or the same price of production on the worst land (and the same value, if absolute rent is paid) is expressed in a larger amount of product, on account of increased labour productivity. The product still represents the same value as before, but the price of its aliquot parts has fallen, while their number has increased. If the same capital is applied, this is impossible; for in that case the same value is always expressed in any portion of the product. It is possible, however, if an extra capital is invested for gypsum, guano, etc., i.e. for improvements whose effects extend over several years. The condition is that the price of the individual quarter, even though it falls, does not fall in the same ratio as the number of quarters grows.
possible in only two ways

In this case, further differentiation may have increased the differential rent of the better lands, and with it the price of those lands. Or, if that is not the case, a rise in the productivity of labour may have brought down the price of what the land produces, so that the increased production more than outweighs it. Suppose a quarter cost 60s. If the same acre, worked with the same capital, produces 2 qrs instead of 1, and the quarter falls to 40s., then 2 qrs bring 80s.; so the value of the product of the same capital on the same acre has risen by a third, even though the price per quarter has fallen by a third. How this is possible without the product being sold above its price of production or its value was worked out when we dealt with differential rent. In fact it is possible in only two ways. Either worse land is put out of competition, but the price of the better land rises if its differential rent grows — the general improvement therefore acting unevenly on the different kinds of land. Or, on the worst land, the same price of production (and the same value, if absolute rent is paid) comes to be expressed, through the raised productivity of labour, in a larger mass of product. The product still represents the same value as before, but the price of each of its equal parts has fallen while their number has grown. If the same capital is used, this is impossible, since the same value is then always expressed in whatever quantity of product there is. It is possible, however, if an extra capital has been laid out on gypsum, guano and the like — in short, on improvements whose effect stretches over several years. The condition is that the price of the individual quarter falls, but not in the same proportion as the number of quarters grows.

III. These various conditions for a rise in rent, and hence either in the price of land in general or in that of particular types of land, may partly compete with one another, partly exclude one another, and may only take effect in alternation. But it follows from the above discussion that a rise in the price of land does not necessarily mean a rise in rent, and that a rise in rent, which always brings with it a rise in the price of land, does not invariably mean an increase in its products.42
two inferences that are not automatic

III. These various conditions under which rent can rise, and therefore the price of land — either in general or for particular kinds of land — can in part compete with one another; in part they exclude one another, and they can only take effect by turns. But it follows from what has been worked out that a rise in the price of land does not by itself mean a rise in rent, and that a rise in rent — which always brings a rise in the price of land with it — does not by itself mean that the products of the land have become dearer.

Kap. 46
The Earth as an Instrument of Production
The reader arrives from the finding that the price of land can rise while the product's price falls, and that the conditions lifting rent and the price of land may partly compete, partly exclude one another and work by turns. Two inferences were refused there: a higher price of land does not by itself prove higher rent, and higher rent does not by itself prove dearer products. What is left open is the question Marx's next step turns on. The shallow objection that a bounded field cannot absorb more capital was called in instead of the real natural causes of exhaustion: what follows from the earth acting as an instrument of production?
*
*
Instead of returning to the actual natural causes for the exhaustion of land, which incidentally were unknown to any of the economists who wrote about differential rent, on account of the state of agricultural chemistry in their time, resort is made to the superficial conception that there is a limit to the amount of capital which can be invested in a spatially limited field, e.g. when the Edinburgh Review counters Richard Jones by saying that the whole of England cannot be fed by cultivating Soho Square. If this is seen as a particular disadvantage of agriculture, precisely the opposite is the case. Here successive capital investments can be made to bring fruit just because the earth itself functions as an instrument of production, which is not the case with a factory, where it functions only as the foundation, the site, the spatial basis of operations — or at least is only the case to a very small extent. It is certainly possible to concentrate a great productive installation in a small space, compared with fragmented handicraft production, and this is what modern industry does. But once the level of productivity is given, a certain space is always required, and building upwards also has its definite practical limits. Beyond these limits, an expansion of production also requires an expansion outwards. The fixed capital invested in machines, etc. is not improved by use; on the contrary, it depreciates. Here, too, particular improvements are possible as a result of new discoveries, but taking the development of productivity as given, a machine can only deteriorate. When productivity develops rapidly, the whole of the old machinery must be replaced by a more advantageous kind, and it is therefore lost. The earth, on the contrary, continuously improves, as long as it is treated correctly. The advantage of the earth, that successive capital investments can have their benefit without the earlier ones being lost, at the same time implies the possibility of a difference in yield between these successive capital investments.
the shallow limited-field notion rejected

Rather than a return to the real natural causes of soil exhaustion — causes that, incidentally, were unknown to every economist who wrote on differential rent, given the state of agricultural chemistry in their time — what was called in to help was a shallow notion: that you cannot lay out just any amount of capital in a field of limited size. The Edinburgh Review, for example, threw it back at Richard Jones that the whole of England could not be fed by cultivating Soho Square. But if limited space is taken as a special disadvantage of farming, the opposite is true. Successive capital investments can bear fruit here, because the earth itself works as an instrument of production. With a factory that is not so — or only within very narrow limits: there the earth serves only as foundation, site, spatial base of operations. One can indeed — and big industry does — pack a large productive installation into a space that is small compared with fragmented handicraft work. But take the level of productivity as given, and a definite amount of space is always needed; building upward, too, has its definite practical limits. Beyond those, expanding production means expanding the land area too. Fixed capital laid out in machines and the like is not improved by use; it wears out. New inventions can bring particular improvements here too, but hold the development of productivity fixed and a machine can only get worse. When productivity develops fast, the whole old machinery must be replaced by more advantageous machinery, and so is lost. The earth, by contrast, improves continually when it is treated correctly. And the earth's advantage — that successive capital investments can bring benefit without the earlier ones being lost — includes the possibility of a difference in yield between those successive investments.