Sabri Oncu wrote: > Here is a general question: where is the surplus value in economic rents?
Economic rents (either due to natural scarcity, monopoly, temporary technical advantage, or whatever) represent individuals or companies having a special advantage vis-á-vis other individuals in the broadly-defined process of capitalist competition. On the other hand, surplus-value represents the structural advantage in society that one class (the capitalists, broadly defined) have vis-á-vis another (the workers) in the economic system as a whole. In this view, the capitalist structural advantage allows them to extract surplus-value from workers (by getting them to do unpaid labor) in capitalist society as a whole. Then, this surplus-value is distributed among different fractions of the capitalist class and among individual capitalists. Those with special, individual, advantages in competition can then grab an extra amount of surplus-value for themselves, out of proportion to the amount of capital they advance. These economic rents are deductions from the total surplus-value, meaning that those without special advantages receive sub-normal fractions of that product. BTW, I think that it's possible for some elite members of the broadly-defined working class -- some professional athletes, actors, etc. -- to grab a piece of the action (a fraction of society's total surplus value). -- Jim Devine / "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." -- Paul Dirac _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
