Del procedimiento de designación

2.3.1 Patterns o f land ownership

Massey and Catalano (1978) argue that the transition from feudalism to capitalism did not lead to the demise of large landowners. Referring to agricultural production where capitalist forms of production were established, there were tenanted estates with direct producers separated from the land, the capitalists’ tenant farming being established with hired labour. The process of production consisted of large landowners, tenanted estates, direct producers separated from the land, and capitalist farming established with hired labour. The passage from feudalism to capitalism did not follow the same pattern, but varied from country to country. The authors argue that in France it was characterised by the expropriation of the property of the nobility resulting in a very small scale of peasant farming being established. In Prussia, capitalism in agriculture was established by the landowner becoming the capitalist farmer. As a result, the previous Junker economy was reduced to a system of agricultural workers.

The transition from feudalism to capitalism was not only noticed in patterns of landownership, but played an important role in giving rise to three distinct classes within agricultural production. First, the emergence of large-scale landowners who appropriated ground rental. Second, capitalist tenant farmers who paid the rents. Finally, the landless agricultural labourers, hired by the capitalist tenant farmers (Massey & Catalano, 1978).

Changes in production brought about by capitalism meant the development of a division between owners and non-owners of land. To non-landowners, the payment of rent further reinforced these divisions. Appropriation of ground rents by landowners characterised property relations, and the continued existence of tenant farmers was

mediated by rents. Landowners emerged as a ruling class and were often incorporated in the “capitalist bourgeoisie ... this in turn enabled and reinforced the retention of a degree of political power by such landowners, and guaranteed their continued influence on the nature and change undergone by political institutions” (Massey & Catalano,

1978:5).

The authors further suggest a dichotomy in the emergence of large-scale landownership that formed the basis of political power, influencing the ruling class in Britain. Any changes in political institutions, landownership and its survival were equally influenced by the particular characteristics of the transition to capitalism that led to changes in the social structure of the pattern of landownership in the 19th century. Massey and Catalano (1978) further enumerate changes in patterns of landownership. First, the decline of big landowners and landed aristocracy, caused by conflicting interests between agricultural landowners and landowners subordinated to industry. Agricultural commodities generated additional sources of conflict. In an attempt to continue keeping the price of food low, leading to the reduction of working-class living standards and wages, the manufacturing industry was in conflict with landowners. This contributed to the decline of large estates held by landowners.

The second explanation for changes in patterns of landownership in Britain lies in the shift from “acreage and percentage holding terms from tenancy to owner occupation” (Massey & Catalano, 1978:6). Land farmed on a tenancy basis was reduced by half. In 1873, 90 p ercen t of farm land was tenanted; by the early 1970s this figure had been reduced to under 50 per cent (1978:6). In housing production the emphasis on owner occupation rose from 10.6 per cent in 1914 to 53 per cent in 1975 (1978:6).

Third, there was the increase in the role of State agencies. The authors argue that State agencies account for 19 per cent of the total acreage, with central government owning between 7 and 9 per cent, the local authorities about 7 per cent, nationalised industries 2.5 per cent and the various conservation authorities about 1.5 per cent (Massey & Catalano, 1978).

Finally, property companies, insurance companies, pension funds and so on began to enter into landownership. The independent and powerful financial sector was thus entering the structure of society.

2.3.2 Land investments and tenancy relationships

This section explores land relations established in the capitalist society as a result of this transition, and the effects of these relations.

The passage from feudalism to capitalism was characterised by the emergence of capitalist tenant farmers, whose relationship towards landowners was mediated by the payment of rent. Furthermore, a class of landless labourers, whose survival was based on their ability to sell their labour to capitalist tenant farmers. Under these forms of land relations the significance of land to both landowners and capitalist farmers is crucial. To the former, it is the means through which ground rental is appropriated, and to the latter the ability to increase production, accumulate profits and further exploit waged labour depends on the size of the landholdings. The insecurity of tenure characterising these property relations meant that the use of land could only continue as long as rental payments were made. Apart from the landowner benefiting from rents, the improvements made on land by tenants reverted to the landowners at the end of the tenancy. This served as a basis of increased rents passed on to the new tenant. Massey and Catalano (1978) argue that the system had an impact on tenants as it reduced the investments in improvements and, furthermore, their standard of living.

Land relations that developed within this system of landownership further accounted for barriers in the acquiring of land for urban housing. As the cost of land increased, so did the cost of housing, leading to the construction of high-density housing. Making reference to the cost of land in Britain, Massey and Catalano (1978) state that, between 1895 and 1907, London County Council land cost 34.4 per cent of the price of development. As the value of land rose, working-class housing, though built on cheap land, absorbed a large percentage of the income of these households, leading the government to intervene in land matters.

2.3.3 Capitalist rents, landownership and the system o f production

It is argued that the capitalist mode of production dominates capitalist societies. The capitalist mode of production, defined as “the particular form of organisation of society which ensures the means by which the product of that society is produced, and the manner in which it is appropriated” (Massey & Catalano, 1978:23). The definition of rents and landownership will vary from one mode of production to another. Under the capitalist society, the mode of production consists of two distinct classes, the appropriators of surplus, often dominating ideologically the political scenes, the bourgeois, and those exploited by the system, with only labour power to sell, the workers. Contrary to the capitalist mode of production, the feudal mode of production consisted of feudal lords and serfs. Property ownership by feudal lords and subsequent relations that developed, based on the right to land and to extract the surplus, further differentiated the lords from the serfs. Serfs, in the feudal mode of production were expected to supply labour, and this was regarded as their means of earning a living, providing labour for the lords, appropriated in relation to produce, in cash or in labour hours .

Under the capitalist mode of production, these relations have been transformed: “the means of production are owned, not by those who perform the surplus labour, but by those who appropriate it, who control the process of production” (Massey & Catalano, 1978:24). The production of surplus occurs as a result of the manufacture of commodities. Even the relationship between the two classes, proletariat and bourgeois, is different from feudal modes of production, where serfs possessed the means of production and the surplus labour was “defined juridically as the right of the landowner, as the rent” (1978:24).

If the feudal mode of production was being transformed, what form did it take under capitalism? The authors argue that the capitalist mode of production has not taken over from feudalism, but the latter has been increasingly incorporated into “social formation dominated by capitalism, and realignment of the elements and relationships of feudalism to that dominant structure” (Massey & Catalano, 1978:24). Therefore, the relations of different groups of landowners towards transformation influence particular

forms of landownership. Even ownership of land, in itself, does not imply control over the processes of production and “neither is its ownership a basis on which surplus product itself is either produced by or appropriated from the direct producers” (ibid).

According to Marx (1973:95), capitalist rent represents a structure of distribution:

The structure of distribution is completely determined by the structure of production. Distribution is itself a product of production, not only in its object, in that only the results of that production can be distributed, but also in its form, in that the specific kind of participation in production determines the specific forms of distribution, i.e. the pattern of participation in distribution.

Participation in production is a consequence of a particular historical distribution of the means, instruments and conditions of production. How the surplus value, produced by surplus labour, will be distributed under capitalism, depends on the structure of ownership of the necessities of production. For example, merchants as owners of commercial capital receive returns while owners of money capital may receive interest. Landowners operating within private ownership receive their share in accordance to the structure of ownership and the distribution of surplus value. Under capitalism, landownership commands rental payment, regarded as “a monopoly by certain persons over definite portions of the globe (Marx, 1976:615). Ground rent is regarded as “the specific economic expression of landed property” (Marx, 1976:622). The payment results rather from the social relationship than a return from the productivity of land itself. The social product, produced in the form of value, is capable of being produced by labour, leading to the creation of surplus value. Land, argue Massey and Catalano (1978) is not a produced means, has no value and embodies no labour. “Value is labour. Therefore surplus value cannot be earth. Absolute fertility on the soil affects nothing more than the following: a certain quantity of labour produces a certain product in accordance with the natural fertility of the soil” (Marx, 1976:815). Therefore, what landlords receive as rent forms the portion of surplus value resulting from the prior distribution of ownership of a condition of production. Landownership, and not land, commands rent.

Rent, according to Massey and Catalano (1978), is a structural category with a distinct form taken by a part of the total surplus value as a result of its appropriation by the owners of land. Rent indicates a particular position held by the owners of land within the capitalist social formation.

The existence of rents has effects on the functioning of capitalist systems. First, rent as a category may continue to exist even under industrial capital which owns land. Rent is often paid in advance, in the form of land purchase. Second, since industrial capitalists own land they are also aware of the rent to be charged on it. As Marx explained:

The capitalist operating on his own capital, like the one operating on borrowed capital, divides the gross profit into interest due to himself as owner, as his own lender, and into profit of enterprise due to him as to an active capitalist

performing his function. As concerns this division, therefore, as a qualitative one, it is immaterial whether the capitalist really has to share with one another, or not. The employer of capital, even when working with his own capital, splits into two personalities - the owner of capital and the employer of capital; with reference to the categories of profits which it yields, his capital also splits into capital-property, capital outside the production process, and yielding interest of itself, and capital in the

production process which yields a profit of enterprise through its function (Marx, 1976:375).

2.3.4 Rent as a social relation

Massey and Catalino (1978) define land as an external but necessary condition of existence of capitalism. It is possible to have different forms of relations of landownership, individual private ownership, church ownership, industrial and State ownership of land. These relations of landownership conditions the form of rent appropriated. The specific forms of rent are determined by the forms of landownership.

rent, and two forms of differential rent. The monopoly rent, first, assumes monopoly is held by private owners of land. Second, users can freely compete for plots of land of different quality and locations. Finally, competition exists among landowners over the rents commanded by plots in different locations. It is also possible for the competitive conditions not to characterise monopoly rents (Harvey, 1982). Monopoly rents are realised when property owners, controlling land of a special location and quality, are able to extract monopoly rents from those willing to use the land. Under these circumstances, the sale of land, once it produces high-quality products, can fetch a monopolistic price. Thus, a “monopoly price creates the rent” (Harvey, 1982:350). It is possible for landowners not to release unused land for sale unless “paid such a high rent that the market prices of commodities produced on that land are forced above value” (ibid). The withholding of land depends on the position of landed interests, collective class power and the scarcity of land. Harvey maintains that the rent charged creates the monopoly price. Monopoly prices affect the cost of working class housing.

Absolute rent arises when capital of a certain size in agriculture produces greater surplus value than it receives in the form of profit, because sectors contribute to the total social surplus value according to the labour power they employ and receive surplus value according to the total capital they advance (Harvey, 1982:351).

Within absolute rent, it is possible for products to trade above the price of production, although selling below or above their values. Absolute rent takes place without infringing the law of value (Harvey, 1982). Absolute rent depends upon supply and demand conditions, as well as upon the area of new land taken into cultivation.

Absolute rent is associated with landlords who will require payment for the use of land, regardless of whether differential profits can be generated. This form of rent continues to exist because landed property owners refuse to release land for production without payment. Under these conditions, landed property creates a barrier to investment and increases the price of commodities above their price of production. Where landed property does not exist, “the barrier to investment posed by absolute rent would be

removed, and prices would be equal to the prices of production” (Massey & Catalano, 1978:42).

Land is regarded as the basic means of production. Therefore, the value o f the products produced has a market value, a fixed price. The price of products is affected by a combination of factors such as the quality of land, locational advantage, transportation and so on. Producers on better land are able to command higher profits than those having poorer land. Massey and Catalano (1978) argue that the variation in output is not a consequence of special characteristics of the particular capital employed, but a consequence of specific conditions associated with the land on which production takes place. Differential rent arises because “capitalists located on a favoured plot of land will therefore make surplus profits equivalent to the difference between that individual price of production and the ruling price of production” (Massey & Catalano, 1978:42). It is an effect of the capitalist mode of production. Hindess (1972:15) notes the difference between differential and absolute rents, with the latter not dependent on private property:

Its existence does not depend on private property on land. The latter is a specific effect of landed property: i.e. it is an effect of the specific form of combination of the feudal and capitalist modes of production.

Differential rents are produced under unequal conditions. They can exist even where private ownership of land has been abolished:

Differential rent inevitably arises in capitalist agriculture even if the ownership of land is completely abolished. Under the private ownership of land, this rent is appropriated by the landowner, for competition between capitals compels the tenant farmer to be satisfied with the average profit on capital. When the private ownership is abolished, the rent will go to the state. That rent cannot be abolished as long as the capitalist mode of production exists (Lenin, 1907:297- 298).