Differential Rent, Market Values and ‘False’ Social Value: Some Implications

Abstract

A rereading of the Marxian labour theory of value is attempted in this article in order to examine some aspects of the economic relations between agriculture and industry, under capitalism, which derive from this theory. The focal points of this rereading are the theory of the differential rent, the theory of formation of market values in agriculture and industry and the Marxian reproductive schemes. This analysis rather justifies Ricardo's theoretical view regarding the fact that the spontaneous laws of capitalist economy lead to an extraction of an extra value from the industrial sector in favour of the agricultural sector. This is a relation of unequal exchange between the industrial and agricultural sector which consists of what Marx has called ‘false social value’.