MARX'S CONCEPT OF GROUND-RENT, AND LANDOWNER REVENUE: THE RELATION OF MARX'S CONCEPT OF GROUND-RENT TO THE HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF LANDOWNER REVENUE FROM THE PRODUCTION OF PETROLEUM.

摘要

Recent Marxist interpretations of Marx's concept of ground-rent have argued for a critical reconstruction, that would align the concept with historical circumstances for which it is said to account inadequately. However, these Marxist interpretations have misrepresented, misused and distorted Marx's concept of ground-rent and, by extension, his general theory of capital. As a result, they have created the very problems that they attribute to Marx's theory. The object of our dissertation is to return to Capital in order to determine the actual meaning of Marx's concept of ground-rent, and, to determine how the concept can be related to the historical analysis of landowner revenue, particularly of landowner revenue from the production of petroleum.;Our study will conclude that Marx's concept of ground-rent cannot be applied directly to historical explanation, as if it were an empirical indicator; it will conclude that Marx's concept of ground-rent is to be used as a "guide," for the historical specification of actual landowner revenues.;First, we will demonstate that Marx's concept of ground-rent is an extension of his concept of the equalization of the rate of profit, operating under the restrictions imposed by modern landed property. Second, we will demonstrate that Pierre Philippe Rey, Samir Amin and other Marxists, confusing absolute ground-rent with monopoly revenue, have changed Marx's concept from a law of surplus-value distribution to a contingency laden effect of history, i.e. of class or political struggle. Third, we will explain monopoly revenues without modifying Marx's formulation of a concept of ground-rent: i.e., we will construct a concept of monopoly surplus-profit, not at the level of the theory of capital and not even at the level of historical analysis, but at an intermediary level of theory, called stage theory; and, within this stage theory, a theory of stage of Imperialism, we will contrast our concept of monopoly surplus-profit, with the stage concepts of monopoly ground-rent and State-type revenue. Finally we will construct a framework for a historical notion of revenue that will permit the use of Marx's concept in the historical analysis of landowner revenue that derives from the production of petroleum.