“In the following passages, Jones correctly explains the historical and economic conditions under which rent is equivalent to surplus profit, that is the expression of modern landed property.
“Farmers’ Rents […] can only exist when the most important relations of the different classes of society have ceased to originate in the ownership and occupation of the soil” (op. cit., p. 185).
The capitalist mode of production begins with manufacture and only later subjugates agriculture.
“… it is the artisans and the handicraftsmen who first range themselves under the management of capitalists…” (p. 187).
“One of the immediate consequences of this change is the power of moving at pleasure the labour and capital employed in agriculture, to other occupations.”
[And only with this power can there be any question of equalisation of agricultural and industrial profit.]
“While the tenant was himself a labouring peasant, forced, in the absence of other funds for his maintenance, to extract it himself from the soil, he was chained to that soil by necessity; […] the little stock he might possess, since it was not sufficient to procure him a maintenance unless used for the single purposes of cultivation, was virtually chained to the soil with its master.” [With the capitalist master] “this dependence on the soil is broken: and unless as much can be gained by employing the working class on the land, as from their exertions in various other employments, which in such a state of society abound, the business of cultivation will be abandoned. Rent, in such a case, necessarily consists merely of surplus profits…” (loc. cit., p. 188). Rent ceases to have any influence on wages. “When the engagement of the labourer is with a capitalist, this dependence on the landlord is dissolved…” (p. 189).” (p 402-3)
Jones does not explain how surplus profit arises, other than in the Ricardian sense of Differential Rent, arising from varying degrees of fertility.
He says,
““When rents consist of surplus profits, there are three causes from which the rent of a particular spot of ground may increase:
“First, an increase of the produce from the accumulation of larger quantities of capital in its cultivation;
“Secondly, the more efficient application of capital already employed;
“Thirdly, (the capital and produce remaining the same) the diminution of the share of the producing classes in that produce, and a corresponding increase of the share of the landlord.
“These causes may combine in different proportions…” (p. 189).” (p 403)
Marx then examines these three causes. All three are based upon rent being surplus profit. In the first case, it is clear that this is correct, although Ricardo himself only refers to it once, and then only incidentally.
“When the capital employed in agriculture increases, the amount of rent increases as well, even though the price of corn, etc., does not rise and no other change whatever takes place. It is clear that, in this case, the price of land rises, although corn prices do not and no change whatever takes place in them.” (p 403)
In other words, if £1,000 of capital is employed on a hectare of land, and produces 100 kilos of corn, with an exchange-value of £1200, or £12 per kilo, the rent may be £100 or £1 per kilo. If £2,000 of capital is employed, on this hectare of land, output rises to 200 kilos, with an exchange-value of £2,400. The price per kilo remains £12, and the rent per kilo remains £1, but rent on the hectare of land now rises from £100 to £200.
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