Under feudalism, rent initially arises as sporadic payments of tribute to a victorious leader in battles. As one tribe or clan conquers land, so land itself is gifted to knights etc. Again, over a period, these tributes become consolidated into regular payments, but again, their material basis is not forcible domination, but custom and tradition, (which is also the basis not just of rents, but also the payment of tithes to the clergy) and whose limit is determined by the level of productivity of the peasant producer, i.e. the extent to which they can perform surplus labour over and above what is required for their own reproduction.
“In discussing forced labour and the forms of serfdom (or slavery) which correspond to it more or less, Jones unconsciously emphasises the two forms to which all surplus-value (surplus labour) can be reduced. It is characteristic that, in general, real forced labour displays in the most brutal form, most clearly the essential features of wage-labour.” (p 400)
As author of The Black Swan, Nicholas Taleb put it,
“Karl Marx, a visionary, figured out that you can control a slave much better by convincing him he is an employee.”
Marx paraphrases Jones,
“Under these conditions [where there is serf labour] rent can only be increased either by the more skilful and effective utilisation of the labour of the tenantry [relative surplus labour], this however is hampered by the inability of the proprietors to advance the science of agriculture, or by an increase in the total quantity of the labour exacted, and in this case, while the lands of the proprietors will be better tilled, those of the serfs, from which labour has been withdrawn, all the Worse. (Op. cit., Chapter II.)” (p 400)
With such a limitation on increasing relative surplus value, due to a slow development of technology, the feudal landlords can only significantly expand surplus value by an expansion of absolute surplus value. That requires an expanded population. To an extent, an expanded population can be accommodated by bringing some of the common land into cultivation, and allocating it to the additional peasant households. However, the common land itself forms part of the production of the village commune. It is used by the peasants to graze cattle; it is the source of wood, which forms the basic form of fuel etc. At a certain point, population exceeds the existing land resources; the plot sizes have to be reduced, and reallocated; productivity falls, and less surplus labour is available.
The simple answer for the feudal landlords, therefore, is to acquire additional land, and peasant labour by conquest. An obvious example is William The Conqueror, and the Norman conquest of England, in 1066. But, feudalism itself arises on the back of such conflicts between Dukes and Princes, as they seek to expand their domains. The Kings seek to acquire new kingdoms, and they allocate conquered lands to the dukes, princes, barons, and knights, who distinguish themselves in battle, in acquiring such new lands for them. As Machiavelli describes, in The Prince, a favoured method of retaining control of such new domains is to colonise them. Colonialism, whether it be of virgin lands, similar to the cultivation of the commons, or via conquest of the territory of some other Prince, arises as the basic form of expansion of feudalism. As the feudal lords establish a symbiotic relation with the rising merchant class, so this colonialism, and the development of colonial empires becomes characteristic of this period of Mercantilism, and distinguishes it from the subsequent period when industrial capitalism becomes dominant, and on the back of which arises imperialism, characterised not by a conquest or colonisation of land, but by the global expansion of industrial capital itself, as it proceeds, via the processes of concentration and centralisation, and combined and uneven development, to forge a single global economy.
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