being personified by the landlord. To the extent that rent in kind is the prevailing and dominant fonn of ground-rent, it is always more or less in the company of survivals of the preceding form, that is of rent paid directly by labor, forced labor, no matter whether the landlord be a private person or the state. Eent in kind requires a higher state of civiliza- tion for the direct producer, a higher stage of development of his labor and of society in general. And it is distinguished from the preceding form by the fact that the surplus labor is no longer performed naturally, is no longer performed under the direct supervision and compulsion of the landlord or' of his representatives. The direct producer is rather driven by the force of circumstances than by direct coercion, rather by legal enactment than by lie whip, to perform surplus la- bor on his own responsibility. Surplus production, in the sense of a production beyond the indispensable needs of the direct producer, and within the field of production actually in his own possession, upon the soil exploited by himself and no longer upon the lord's estate outside of his own land, has become a matter of fact rule here. In this relation the di- rect producer is more or less master of the employment of his whole labor time, although a part of this labor time, at first practically the entire surplus portion of it, belongs to the land- lord without any compensation. Only, the landlord does not get this surplus labor any more in its natural form, but rather in the natural form of the product in which it is realized. The burdensome interruption by the labor for the landlord (see Volume I, chapter X, 2, Manufacturer and Boyard), which disturbs the reproduction of the serf more or less, ac- cording to the way in which forced labor is regulated, disap- pears, wherever rent in kind has its pure form, or at least it is reduced to a few short intervals during the year, which demand a continuation of rent by forced labor bv the sids of rent in kind. The labor of the producer for himself and his labor for the landlord are no longer palpably separated by time and space. This rent in kind, in its pure form, while it may drag itself along sporadically into more highly' devel- oped modes of produ'^tior and -onditions of production, nev-" 924 Capitalist Production.
ertheless requires for its existence a natural economy, that is : an economy in which the conditions of production are either wholly or for the overwhelming part produced by the system I itself in such a way that they are reproduced directly out of l\ its gross product. It furthermore requires the combination j N?f domestic rural industry with agriculture. The surplus product, which forms the rent, is the product of this combined agricultural and industrial family labor, no matter whether rent in kind contains more or less of the industrial product, as it often does in the middle ages, or whether it is paid only in the form of actual products of the soil. In this form of rent it is by no means necessary that rent in kind, which rep- resents the surplus labor, should fully exhaust the entire sur- plus labor of the rural family. Compared to labor rent, the producer rather has more elbow room to gain time for some surplus labor whose product shall belong to himself, as does that of the labor which produces his indispensable means of /subsistence. This form will also give rise to greater differ- ences in the economic situation of the individual direct pro- ducers. At least the possibility for such a differentiation ex- ists, and so does the possibility that the direct producer may have acquired the means to exploit other laborers for himself, but this does not concern us here, since we are dealing with rent in its pure form. Neither can we pay any heed to the endless variety of combinations, by which the various forms of rent may be united, adulterated and amalgamated.
Owing to the peculiar form of rent in kind, by which it is bound to a definite kind of products and of production, owing furthermore to the indispensable combination of agriculture and domestic industry attached to it, also to the almost com- plete selfsufficiency in which the peasant family supports it- self and to its independence from markets and from the move- ment of production and history in the social spheres outside of it, in short owing to the character of natural economy in general this form is quite suitable for becoming the basis of stationary conditions of society, such as we see in Asia. Here, as previously in the form of labor rent, ground-rent is the normal form of surplus-value, and thus of surplus labor, that Rent in Kind. 925 Rent in Kind. 925 is of the entire surplus labor performed without any equiva- lent by the direct producer for the benefit of the owner of his essential means of production, the land, a labor which is still performed under compulsion, although no longer in the old brutal form. The profit, if, falsely anticipating, we may so call that portion of the direct producer's labor which exceeds his necessary labor and which he keeps for himself, has so little to do with determining the rent in kind, that this profit rather grows up behind the back of the rent and finds its natural limit in the size of the rent in kind. This rent may assume dimensions which seriously threaten the reproduc- tion of the conditions of labor, of the means of production. It may render an expansion of production more or less im- possible, and grind the direct producers down to the physical minimum of means of subsistence. This is particularly the case, when this form is met and exploited by a conquering industrial nation, as India is by the English. y IV. Money Rent.
IV. Money Rent.
By money rent we mean here — for the sake of dis- tinction from the industrial and commercial ground-rent resting upon the capitalist mode of production, which is but a surplus over the average profit — that ground-rent which arises from a mere change of form of rent in kind, just as this rent in kind, in its turn, is but a modification of labor rent. Under money rent, the direct producer no longer turns over the product, but its price, to the landlord (who may be either the state or a private individual). A surplus of prod- ucts in their natural form is no longer sufficient; it must be converted from its natural form into money. Although the direct producer still continues to produce at least the greater part of his means of subsistence himself, a certain portion of this product must now be converted into commodities, must be produced as commodities. The character of the entire mode of production is thus more or less changed. It loses its independence, it remains no longer detached from the socia*' 9^6. Capitalist Production.
connections. The proportion of the cost of production, which now is more and more complicated with the expenditure of money, now becomes a determining factor. At any rate, the excess of. that portion of the gross product, which must be converted into money, over that portion, which has to serve either as means of reproduction or as means of direct subsist- ence, assumes a determining role. However, the basis of this rent remains the same as that of the rent in kind, from which it starts, although money rent likewise approaches its disso- lution. The direct producer still is the possessor of the land, either by inheritance or by some other traditional right, and he has to perform for his landlord, who is the owner of the land, of his most essential instrument of production, forced surplus labor, that is, unpaid labor for which no equivalent is returned, and this forced surplus labor is now paid in money obtained by the sale of the surplus product. The property in requirements of labor separate from the land, such as agricultural implements and other movable things, is transformed into the property of the direct producer even un- der the preceding form of rent, first in fact, then legally, and this is the condition even more under money rent. The transformation of rent in kind into money rent, taking place first sporadically, then on a more or less national scale, re- quires a considerable development of commerce, of city in- dustries, of the production of commodities in general, and with them of the circulation of money. It furthermore re- quires that products should have a market price, and that I they are sold more or less approximately at their values, ' Avhich need not necessarily be the case under the preceding forms. Tn^ the East of Europe we may still see in a certain measure this transformation with our own eyes. How little it can be carried through without a certain development of the social productivity of labor, is proved by various unsuc- cessful attempts to carry it through under the Eoman em- perors, and by relapses into rent in kind after the attempt had been made to convert at least that portion of rent in kind into a money rent which had to be paid as a state tax. The same difficulties of transition are shown, for instance, by the Money Rent. 927 pre revolutionary time in France, when money rent was com- bined and adulterated by survivals of the forms preceding it.
Money rent, as a converted form of rent in kind and as an antagonist of rent in kind, is the last form, and the dissolv- ing form, of that form of ground-rent, which we have consid- ered so far, namely of ground-rent as the normal form of surplus-value and of the unpaid surplus labor to be performed for the owner of the means of production. In its pure form, this rent, like labor rent and rent in kind, does not represent any surplus above the profit. It absorbs the profit, as it is understood. To the extent that profit arises in fact as a separate portion of the surplus labor by the side of the rent, money rent as well as rent in its preceding forms still is the normal barrier of such embryonic profit, which can only de- velop in proportion as the possibility of exploitation gTows, whether it be the producer's own surplus labor or the surplus labor of another, which remains after the surplus represented by money rent has been paid. If any profit actually arises along with this rent, this profit is not a barrier of rent, but the rent is rather a barrier of this profit. However, we re- peat that money rent is at the same time the disappearing form of the rent which we have considered so far, of that rent which is identical with surplus-value and surplus labor, of ground-rent as the normal and prevailing fonn of surplus- value.
In its further development money rent must lead — aside from all intermediate forms, such as that of the small peasant who is a tenant — • either to the transformation of land into independent peasants' property, or into the form corresponding to the capitalist mode of production, tliat is, to rent paid by the capitalist tenant.
With the coming of money rent the traditional and cus- tomary relation between the landlord and the subject tillers of the soil, who possess and cultivate a part of the land, is turned into a pure money relation fixed by the rules of posi- tive law. The cultivating possessor thus becomes virtually a mere tenant. This transformation serves on the one hand, provided that other general conditions of production permit 928 Capitalist Production.
such a thing, to expropriate gradually the old peasant pos- sessors and to put in their place capitalist t£Jiants. On the othe~r hand it leads to a release of the old possessors from their tributary relation by buying themselves free from their landlord, so that they become independent farmers and free owners of the land tilled by them. The transformation of rent in kind into money rent is not only necessarily accompa- nied, but even anticipated by the formation of a class of prop- ertyless day laborers, who hire themselves out for wages. During the period of their rise, when this new class appears but sporadically, the custom necessarily develops among the better situated tributary farmers of exploiting agricultural laborers for their owti account, just as the wealthier serfs in feudal times used to employ serfs for their own benefit. In this way they gradually acquire the ability to accumulate a certain amount of wealth and to transform themselves even into future capitalists. The old selfemploying possessors of the land thus give rise among themselves to a nursery for cap- italist tenants, w^hose development is conditioned upon the general development of capitalist production outside of the rural districts. This class grows very rapidly, when particularly favorable circumstances come to its aid, as they did in England in the 16th century, where the progressive depreci- ation of money made them rich, under the customary long leases, at the expense of the landlords.
Furthermore: As soon as rent assumes the form of money rent, and with it the relation between rent paying peasants and landlords becomes a relation fixed by contract — a development which is not possible unless the world mar- ket, commerce and manufacture have reached a relatively high level — the leasing of land to capitalists necessa- rily also puts in its appearance. These men, having stood outside of the rural barrier so far, now transfer to the coun- try and to agriculture some capital acquired in the cities and with it the capitalist mode of production as developed in those cities, which implies the creation of the product in the form of a mere commodity and as a mere means of appropriating surplus-value. This form can become the general rule only Money Rent. 929 in those countries, which dominate the world market in the period of transition from the feudal to the capitalist mode of production. When the capitalist tenant steps between the landlord and the actually working tiller of the soil, all condi- tions have been dissolved, which arose from the old rural mode of production. The capitalist tenant becomes the ac- tual commander of these agricultural laborers and the actual exploiter of their surplus labor, whereas the landlord has any direct relations only with this capitalist tenant, the relation being a mere money relation fixed by contract. This trans- forms also the nature of the rent, not merely in fact and acci- dentally, as it did sometimes even under the preceding forms, but normally, by transforming its acknowledged and prevail- ing mode. Instead of continuing as the normal form of sur- plus-value and surplus labor, it becomes a mere surplus of this surplus labor over that portion of it, which is appropri- ated by the exploiting capitalist in the form of profit. And now the total surplus labor, both profit and surplus above the profit, are extracted by him directly, ajDpropriated in the form of the surplus product, and turned into money. It is only the surplus portion of the surplus-value extracted by him from the agricultural laborer by direct exploitation, by means of his capital, which he turns over to the landlord as rent. How much or how little he gives away to him depends, as a rule, upon the limits set by the average profit which is realized by the capital in the non-agricultural spheres of production, and by the non-agricultural prices of production regulated by this average profit. From a normal form of surplus-value and surplus labor the rent has now transformed itself into a sur- plus peculiar to the agricultural sphere of production, ex- ceeding that portion of the surplus labor, which is claimed at first hand by capital as its legitimate and normal share. Profit, instead of rent, has now become the normal form of surplus-value, and rent exists only as a form, not of surplus- value in general, but of one of its offshoots, called surplus profit, which assumes an independent existence only under very peculiar circumstances. It is not necessary to dwell any further upon the way in which this transformation is accom- 3G 930 Capitalist Production.
panied bv a gradual transformation of the mode of produc- tion itself. This is shown by the mere fact that it is the normal thing for the capitalist tenant to produce the prod- ucts of the soil as commodities, and that, while formerly only the surplus over his means of subsistence was converted into commodities, now but a relatively small part of these com- modities is directly used as means of subsistence for him. It is no longer the land, but the capital, which has now brought under its direct sway and under its o^vn productivity the la- bor of the agriculturalist.
The average profit and the price of production regulated by it are formed outside of the conditions of the rural country within the circles of city commerce and manufacture. The profit of the rent-paying farmers does not enter into it as a balancing element, for their relation to the landlord is not a capitalist one. To the extent that he makes profits, that is, realizes a surplus above his necessary means of subsistence, either by his own labor or by the exploitation of other peo- ple's labor, it is done behind the back of the normal relation- ship. Other circumstances being equal, the size of this profit does not determine the rent, but on the contrary, it is deter- mined by the limits set by the rent. The high rate of profit in the Middle Ages is not entirely due to the low composition of the capital, in which the variable capital, invested in w^ages, predominates. It is due also to the robbery commit- ted against the land, the appropriation of a portion of the landlord's rent and of the income of his vassals. While the country exploits the town politically m the Middle Ages, wherever feudalism has not been broken down by an excep- tional development of the towns, the town, on the other hand, everywhere and without exception exploits the land economically by its monopoly prices, its system of taxation, its guild organizations, its direct mercantile fraud and its usury.
One might imagine that the mere advent of the capitalist tenant in agricultural production would prove that the price of those products of the soil, which had always paid a rent in one form or another, must stand above the prices of produc- tion of manufacture, at least at the time of this advent. And Money Rent. 931 Money Rent. 931 this for the reason that the price of such products of the soil had reached the level of a monopoly price or that it had risen as high as the value of the products of the soil, and that this value actually stood above the price of production regu- lated by the average profit. Unless this were so, the capi- talist tenant could not very well realize first the average profit out of the price of these products, at the existing prices of the products of the soil, and then pay out of this same price a surplus above his profit in the form of rent. One might conclude from this that the average rate of profit, which guides the capitalist tenant in his contract with the landlord, had been formed without including the rent, and that as soon as this average rate of profit assumes a regulating part in agricultural production it finds this surplus ready at hand and turns it over to the landlord. It is in this traditional manner that, for instance, Rodbertus explains this matter. But several points must be considered here.
1) This advent of capital as an independent and leading power in agriculture does not take place generally all at once, but gradually and separately in various lines of production. It seizes at first, not agriculture proper, but such lines of pro- duction as cattle raising, especially sheep raising, Avhose prin- cipal product, wool, offers a steady surplus of the market price over the price of production during the rise of indus- try, and this is not balanced until later. This was the case in England during the 16th century.
2) Since this capitalist production appears at first but sporadically, nothing can be argued against the assumption, that it takes hold in the beginning only of such groups of land as are able, through their particular fertility, or their excep- tionally favorable location, to pay a differential rent in the long nm.
3) Even assuming that at the time of the advent of this mode of production, which indeed requires an increasing pre- ponderance of the demand in the to^vns, the prices of the products of the soil stood higher than the price of produc- tion, as was doubtless the case during the last third of the 17th century in England, nevertheless, as soon as this mode 932 Capitalist Production.
of production will have worked its way somewhat out of the mere subordination of agriculture to capital, and as soon as the improvement of agriculture and the reduction of its cost of production, which accompany its development, will have taken place, the balance will be restored by a reaction, a fall in the price of the products of the soil, as happened in the first half of the 18th century in England.
In this traditional way, then, rent as a surplus above the average profit cannot be explained. Whatever may be the historical circumstances of the time in which rent appears at first, once that it has taken root it cannot exist under any other modern conditions than those previously explained.
Finally, it should be noted in the transformation of rent in kind into money rent, that with it capitalized rent, or the price of land, and its salableness and sale become essential elements, and that with them not only the formerly rent-pay- ing tenant may be transformed into an independent peasant proprietor, but also urban and other moneyed people may buy real estate, in order to lease them either to peasants or to cap- italists and thus to enjoy rent in the form of interest on cap- ital so invested; that, therefore, this likewise assists in the transformation of the former mode of exploitation, of the re- lation between the owner and the actual tiller of the land, and of the rent itself.
V. Share Farming (Metairie System) and Small Peasants',, Property. %\ We have now arrived at the end of our line of development of ground-rent.
In all these forms of ground-rent, whether labor rent, rent in kind, or money rent (as a mere change of lorni of rent in kind), the rent-paying party is always supposed to be the ac- tual tiller and possessor of the land, whose unpaid surplus la- bor passes directly into the hands of the landlord. Even in the last form, money rent — to the extent that it is " pure," in other words, a mere change of form of rent in kind — this is not only possible, but actually takes place.
f Share Farming. 933 As a form of transition from the original form of rent to capitalist rent, we may consider the metairie system, or share fanning, under which the manager (tenant) furnishes not only labor (his own or that of others), but also a portion of the first capital, and the landlord furnishes, aside from the land, another portion of the first capital (for instance cattle), and the product is divided between the tenant and the land- lord according to definite shares, which differ in various coun- tries. In this case, the tenant lacks the capital required for a thorough capitalist operation of agriculture. On the other hand, the share thus appropriated by the landlord has not the pure form of rent. It may actually include interest on the capital advanced by him and a surplus rent. It may also absorb practically all the surplus labor of the tenant, or leave to him a greater or smaller portion of this surplus labor. But the essential point is that rent no longer appears here as the normal form of suq^lus-value in general. On the one hand, the tenant, whether he employ his own labor or anoth- er's, is supposed to have a claim upon a portion of the prod- uct, not in his capacity as a laborer, but as a possessor of a part of the instruments of labor, as his own capitalist. On