Note 1238 — Chapter II · : THE THEORY OF RENT AND ITS APPLICATIONS

An exposition of the same theory is given in Tract No. 15, English Progress towards Social Democracy: “The individuals or classes who possess social power have at all times, consciously or unconsciously, made use of that power in such a way as to leave to the great majority of their fellows practically nothing beyond the means of subsistence according to the current local standard. The additional product, determined by the relative differences in productive efficiency of the different sites, soils, capitals, and forms of skill above the margin of cultivation, has gone to those exercising control over these valuable but scarce productive factors. This struggle to secure the surplus or ‘economic rent’ is the key to the confused history of European progress, and an underlying, unconscious motive of all revolutions.” Cf. also The Difficulties of Individualism, in Problems of Modern Industry, pp. 237-239.