Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?

IF 7.2 1区 经济学 Q1 ECONOMICS Economic Geography Pub Date : 2021-08-08 DOI:10.1080/00130095.2021.1944095
E. Sheppard
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引用次数: 87

Abstract

Over the past decade, Anglophone geographic political economy has experienced a renewed interest in long-dormant theories of land rent, alongside a growing interest in intellectual property, resources, financialization, infrastructure, and platform capitalism. If this seems a disparate list, Brett Christophers’s Rentier Capitalism begs to differ. Taking the UK as his case study, with an eye on broader developments, he argues that late neoliberal North Atlantic capitalism is now about assets, not commodities—speculation, not profit making—and that these are all assets. Assets as a concept is conspicuous by its absence from theorizations of the capitalist space economy. Marx rarely uses it, only in reference to money, and Karl Polanyi famously dubbed land and money fictitious commodities. Setting out to challenge such conceptual marginalization, Rentier Capitalism makes important contributions to theory, empirics, and policy. Christophers defines assets as scarce items essential to capitalism; privately owned assets “endow the owner with the capacity to generate future income” (p. xvi): rent, “derived from possession or control of scarce assets under conditions of limited or no competition” (p. xvii). Asset holders are rentiers, making money from owning things not producing them. Landlords and land rent come immediately to mind for geographers; Christophers’s major theoretical contribution is to greatly expand such limited thinking. In successive chapters, extending arguments in his preceding books, he argues that assets include financial instruments, natural resources, intellectual property, platform data, contracts, and infrastructure, as well as land. Contracts, beloved of mainstream economists, seem part and parcel of commodity production and exchange, yet Christophers argues that these are also valuable assets because of the future cash flows they make possible. If we are willing to buy even aspects of his typology, this suggests that economic geographers’ focus on land when theorizing rent needs rethinking. Empirically, Christophers examines the growth of each asset class in the UK, documenting its growth, rentier institutions, how UK neoliberalizing state policy accelerated assetization of the economy by subsidizing rentiers, and its association with widening class inequality. He combines a variety of statistical sources with analysis of tax codes and policy documents, leavened by investigative reporting into key asset-holding firms and individuals. He reveals the UK economy as paradigmatic of rentier capitalism: “dominated by sectors in which rentierism is a significant factor” (p. 17); real estate contributes more than twice as much to the national economy as any other economic sector. Noting how falling economic growth rates and rising inequality accompanied this assetization, the Coda lists four policy interventions to counteract rentier capitalism: antimonopoly regulation, tax policies targeting rents and incentivizing nonrentier activities, industrialization policy-shaping investment priorities (suddenly on the UK and US agenda), and de-concentrating and renationalizing asset ownership. Only this last proposal implies “moving away from capitalism” (p. 408). Christophers offers a powerful and persuasive diagnosis of a national territorial economy that is a leading light of neoliberalization. His writing is accessible to a broad audience, and he tells a gripping story. Unlike most geography monographs this is a page-turner, which is being prominently discussed by analysts of the UK economy. This makes Rentier Capitalism BO O K R EV EW
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租金资本主义:谁拥有经济,谁为经济买单?
在过去的十年里,英语国家的地理政治经济学对长期休眠的地租理论重新产生了兴趣,同时对知识产权、资源、金融化、基础设施和平台资本主义也越来越感兴趣。如果这似乎是一个完全不同的列表,那么布雷特·克里斯托弗斯的《出租资本主义》就另当别论了。他以英国为例,着眼于更广泛的发展,认为晚期新自由主义北大西洋资本主义现在是关于资产,而不是商品——投机,而不是盈利——这些都是资产。资产作为一个概念在资本主义空间经济理论中的缺失是显而易见的。马克思很少使用它,只在提到金钱时使用,卡尔·波兰尼著名地将土地和金钱称为虚构的商品。为了挑战这种概念边缘化,Rentier资本主义在理论、经验和政策方面做出了重要贡献。Christophers将资产定义为资本主义必不可少的稀缺物品;私有资产“赋予所有者产生未来收入的能力”(第xvi页):租金,“在有限或没有竞争的条件下拥有或控制稀缺资产”(第x vii页)。资产持有者是租房者,他们通过拥有而不是生产东西来赚钱。地理学家立刻想到地主和地租;Christophers的主要理论贡献是极大地扩展了这种有限的思维。在接下来的章节中,他扩展了前几本书中的论点,认为资产包括金融工具、自然资源、知识产权、平台数据、合同、基础设施以及土地。受主流经济学家喜爱的合同似乎是商品生产和交换的一部分,但Christophers认为,这些合同也是有价值的资产,因为它们使未来的现金流成为可能。如果我们愿意购买他的类型学的哪怕一个方面,这表明经济地理学家在理论租金时对土地的关注需要重新思考。根据经验,Christophers研究了英国每种资产类别的增长,记录了其增长、租房者制度、英国新自由主义国家政策如何通过补贴租房者加速经济资产化,以及它与阶级不平等加剧的关系。他将各种统计来源与税法和政策文件的分析相结合,并通过对关键资产控股公司和个人的调查报告进行了分析。他揭示了英国经济是租房资本主义的典范:“由租房主义是一个重要因素的部门主导”(第17页);房地产对国民经济的贡献是其他经济部门的两倍多。Coda指出,经济增长率下降和不平等加剧伴随着这种资产化,列出了四项政策干预措施来对抗租房资本主义:反垄断监管、针对租金和激励非必要活动的税收政策、塑造投资优先事项的工业化政策(突然提上了英国和美国的议程)、,以及资产所有权的非集中化和重新国有化。只有最后一项建议意味着“远离资本主义”(第408页)。Christophers对国家领土经济进行了有力而有说服力的诊断,这是新自由主义的领军人物。他的作品为广大观众所接受,他告诉了一个扣人心弦的故事。与大多数地理学专著不同,这是一本引人入胜的书,英国经济分析师对此进行了突出讨论。这使得租赁资本主义BO O K R EV EW
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来源期刊
Economic Geography
Economic Geography Multiple-
CiteScore
9.70
自引率
2.90%
发文量
0
期刊介绍: Economic Geography is a peer-reviewed journal dedicated to publishing original research that advances the field of economic geography. Their goal is to publish high-quality studies that are both theoretically robust and grounded in empirical evidence, contributing to our understanding of the geographic factors and consequences of economic processes. It welcome submissions on a wide range of topics that provide primary evidence for significant theoretical interventions, offering key insights into important economic, social, development, and environmental issues. To ensure the highest quality publications, all submissions undergo a rigorous peer-review process with at least three external referees and an editor. Economic Geography has been owned by Clark University since 1925 and plays a central role in supporting the global activities of the field, providing publications and other forms of scholarly support. The journal is published five times a year in January, March, June, August, and November.
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