Rentier capitalism in question

Abstract

Rentier capitalism is an idea that has been drawing increasing attention. This article identifies the incoherence of the idea and then addresses its weaknesses as a critique of contemporary political economy. In the first place, it derives from a view of capitalism which privileges exchange rather than production. This explains its view of the relation between the monopoly control of assets and competition. While there may indeed be a current tendency to invest in assets, that does not necessarily act as a deadweight on production; rather it can act as an incentive to rationalize the labor process with a view to increasing the extraction of surplus value. It is suggested that one of the ways in which industrial capital accommodates itself to increasing rents, license fees and the like, is through a turn to extracting value in its absolute form; which may in then shed light on the stagnation of wage levels that has accompanied the turn to investing in assets.