5. Wakefield [Some Objections to Ricardo’s Theory Regarding the “Value of Labour” and Rent]
Wakefield describes the problem of Smith's confusion of labour with labour-power. If “labour” is exchanged for an equal value of wage goods, then profit is impossible. Marx also quotes a passage from Wakefield in which he illustrates why the terms used in common vocabulary for economic categories do not correspond with their actual economic content.
““Surplus produce […] always constitutes rent: still rent may be paid, which does not consist of surplus produce” (p. 216).
“If” (as in Ireland) “the bulk of a people be brought to live upon potatoes, and in hovels and rags, and to pay, for permission so to live, all that they can produce beyond hovels, rags, and potatoes, then, in proportion as they put up with less, the owner of the land on which they live, obtains more, even though the return to capital or labour should remain unaltered. What the miserable tenants give up, the landlord gathers. […] A fall in the standard of living amongst the cultivators of the earth is another cause of surplus produce… When wages fall, the effect upon surplus produce is the same as a fall in the standard of living: the whole produce remaining the same, the surplus part is greater; the producers have less, and the landlord more” (pp.220-21).” (p 188)
In other words, here, what economically is actually profit, is called rent. The landlord collects, as “rent”, an amount of value, which actually constitutes profit, just as sometimes capital obtains, as profit, what economically constitutes wages, or the value of labour-power. Sometimes the two go together; the landlord encroaches on profit, in the rent they demand from the farmer, whilst the farmer seeks to compensate by encroaching on wages, by paying below the value of labour-power.
“In this case, profit is called rent, just as it is called interest when, for example, as in India, the worker (although nominally independent) works with advances he receives from the capitalist and has to hand over all the surplus produce to the capitalist.” (p 188)
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