Similarly, rent is equal to surplus profit, i.e. profit above the average industrial rate of profit. The simple movement of capital into these high profit spheres acts to compete away such surplus profits. However, that assumes that capital is free o enter such spheres, and, thereby, raise the level of supply. Where landed property already exists, that is not possible. The land owner says to the capitalist, who seeks to use their land, that they must pay them a rent, equal to this surplus profit. Competition to be able to produce those surplus profits, therefore, explains this movement of capital, but, also, explains the basis of the sub-form of surplus value as rent.
Finally, because all capital (not to be confused with the commodities that comprise capital, i.e. capital not as a thing but a social relation) has the potential to produce the average industrial rate of profit (the use-value of capital), it means that capital itself, then, becomes a commodity that can be bought and sold. A potential capitalist who does not own capital can buy it, i.e. borrow money-capital (or lease equipment, buildings etc.) so as to undertake production, and so obtain the average industrial rate of profit. Provided the price of that capital (i.e. rate of interest) is less than the average industrial rate of profit, they can engage in capitalist production. Similarly the owner of money-capital (lessor of premises, equipment etc.) will not lend it for nothing. So, as Marx sets out, in Capital III, the average industrial rate of profit sets an upper limit to the rate of interest, and zero a lower limit. The actual rate of interest then depends on the relation of demand for and supply of this money-capital, at the given time. Once again, therefore, it is this specific form of capitalist competition that provides the dynamic and explains the division of surplus-value into profit and interest.
“But competition is precisely the absolute obstacle to Herr Dühring's understanding of the process. He cannot comprehend how the competing entrepreneurs are able constantly to realise the full product of labour, including the surplus-product, at prices so far above the natural costs of production.” (p 274)
The solution has been set out earlier. The social cost of production is equal to the total social labour-time expended. That total social labour-time includes an amount of surplus labour, embodied in a social surplus product/value. The total product is in the hands of the capitalist class. It hands back, i.e. sells to the working-class, a part of that total product equal to the value of labour-power/wages. That leaves the surplus product in the hands of the capitalist class, just as, in previous modes of production, it remains in the hands of the slave-owners, or landlords.
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