Under feudalism, as in the slave system, surplus labor was actively used. He is considered work carried out in excess of that which is necessary to create the means of subsistence of the worker. Marx considered this work to be the main source of capitalist profit.
Meanwhile, surplus labor began to be used even before the advent of capitalism - under the conditions of the slave and feudal system. Its result is a surplus product. Under feudalism, all types of labor and product are united by the definition of "feudal rent ." Let us consider this concept in more detail.
Definition of feudal rent
Marx reveals this phenomenon most fully in his work on political economy. Using the signs of various forms of labor exploitation, he reveals the phenomena and concepts associated with them .
The term "feudal rent, " according to Marx, can be explained through the concept of feudal property. The author considers rent as a political and economic form of expression of feudal property. Moreover, it can take a different form: cash payments, food deliveries, labor duties. However, in any of these cases, feudal rent is a specific form of exploitation. It is a consequence of the appropriation of surplus labor.
Feudal land rent: its forms and evolution
For any antagonistic way of creating benefits, the form of labor exploitation acts as the basis of the economic structure. According to Marx, just as the law of surplus value, profit is considered the main capitalism, the law of feudal rent can be considered as the basis of feudalism. It reflects all the relations of production characteristic of the system. Among them:
- Feudal ownership of the means of production.
- Relations and positions of social groups.
- Methods of distribution of products.
As the property of landowners, the feudal land rent had a public law form. She acted like a tax, duties were regarded as state taxes. The finances of the state, in turn, are, in fact, centralized in the treasury of a certain part of the feudal rent.
Its movement and evolution are significantly different from changes in capitalist profits. In the history of the feudal system there were periods that were not characterized by expanded, simple reproduction, and long stagnation. Nevertheless, along with the relatively slow formation of production forces, prerequisites were formed not only for changing the volume of rent, but also for transforming its forms. Each of them was the result of long efforts of the direct producer to raise their own standard of living, but in the end it was realized in favor of the ruling class.
From the above it follows that the law of feudal rent is not a static concept. It represents the law of economic development of a particular formation. Exploitation is expanding and deepening not only within the framework of a single form of feudal land rent . The same process is observed during the transition from one species to another.
There are three key forms of feudal rent that are sequentially successive:
- Working off.
- Grocery.
- Money.
They can also be designated as corvée, natural and monetary rent.
Working rent
It is considered the simplest, initial form of feudal rent . The peasant produced the product he needed on his allotment, and the surplus - in the lordly estate.
The developmental feudal rent is not only work on the land of the lords, the construction of castles and fortifications, but also the craft activity carried out by the same peasants in the lordly court.
In the corvee, there are preconditions for their own denial: the separation in time and space of necessary and surplus labor leads to a difference in productivity, since the peasant works diligently in his personal economy and does not zeal in the manor economy. This makes the feudal lord rebuild the rent. To satisfy his possessive interest, the master strives to raise the level of productivity on his lands to the level existing in the peasant economy.
Natural quitrent
Feudal product rent is a converted corvée with the same economic essence. In natural quitrents, surplus labor is carried out not as a separate and special work for the master, but together with the necessary labor within the framework of one production cycle in the peasant economy. The direct producer does not carry out activities under the control of the master, but under his own responsibility. Of the created product, the peasant gives a certain part to his master.
With this rent, the feudal lord assigns the product in its natural form, that is, in the form of meat, linen, grain, etc. Accordingly, the first two types of feudal rent are natural in nature.
Cash rent
One of the prerequisites for the emergence of this form of annuity is the fact that in the case of food rents, the peasant works in his own, rather than in the master's economy. It is worth saying that the transition to monetary service contributes to the separation of crafts from agricultural activities. Entire peasant farms can specialize in a certain direction of labor and make rents with the corresponding product. This, in turn, promotes market exchange and the expansion of cities - centers of trade and crafts.
Due to the division of labor, its productivity and profitability increase. At the same time, it is in the interests of the feudal lords to receive income from increasing average productivity. This task is achieved by establishing cash rents.
Its essence is that the peasant pays the lord the value of the product. Accordingly, it is not enough for him to simply make an excess of the product, it is necessary to deliver it to the market and sell it, that is, convert it into cash.
The consequences of cash rent
The transition to this form of rent contributes to the transformation of the economy and law of a feudal society. New anthropological types begin to arise, for example, hired day laborers, as well as economic phenomena, including the sale and purchase of allotments. Accordingly, the value of land is formed.
Money rent up to a certain point provides not decline and decay, but the intensive development of the feudal way of using labor. Only with the beginning of the formation of the capitalist system does it become a kind of channel for the penetration of capitalism into agriculture.
Transient Features
The transformation of one form of rent into another, reflecting the growth of productive forces, was generated by the interests of both feudal lords and peasants. However, it occurred in a clash of opposing aspirations of participants in feudal relations, deepening the antithesis of their interests.
It is worth saying that in pure form all these forms of rent exist only in theory. In fact, in a given historical period, different types of rent can exist together, while one of them will be dominant.
There were quite complex combinations. One of them can even be considered a special form of rent. It is about the corvee-serf system. It was common in selected Eastern European states.
On the one hand, the corvée-feudal system possesses signs of developmental rent. In the economy of Mr. produced surplus product under the most severe coercion. On the other hand, the characteristics of the third form, the monetary form, are characteristic of the corvée-feudal system. The product is not made for consumption by the feudal lord in kind, but for sale on the market. The difference is that the implementation is carried out not by the peasant, but by the feudal lord. The market can be located either inside the country or abroad. In the second case, marketing is carried out to states in which agriculture was underdeveloped.
Other classification
Feudal rents can be divided into:
- Episodic.
- Fixed.
- Progressive.
The first option is noted mainly in the era of the early Middle Ages. Occasional rent was expressed in the form of tribute, offerings, gifts. Such irregular incomes go back to the economic phenomena that took place in primitive communal and slaveholding societies.
Fixed rent is more characteristic of the feudal system. It was a general / per capita tax, collection from the farm or its head, from dependent areas or from their managers.
The value of fixed annuity is not strictly dependent on the profitability of the economy or productivity. In this regard, it is beneficial in a period of increasing profitability and is detrimental in unfavorable conditions, natural disasters, cattle death, etc.
Progressive annuity
It is also called relative, functional or proportional. Such annuity is a fixed part of income or crop. It was part of a cash or in-kind lease and is presented in the form of “dime”, “tith”, share-share, etc. As a matter of fact, any rent, which depends on the allotment area, the size of the farm, is progressive. It may be beneficial to one or the other side of feudal relations. It depends on the specific historical period.
Difficulty in practice
Progressive rent is considered the most flexible rental option. It corresponds to productivity growth in a developing society. However, she is confronted with the power of customs and traditionalism inherent in feudalism.
In the process of the formation of capitalist relations, it is precisely the shareholding that acts as the form of rental relations that is more suitable for filling the former feudal system with capitalist content.
While the quitrent is charged in kind, it is very difficult to implement its progressiveness. The peasant begins to produce various products, plant plants that are not provided for in the feudal agreement, begins to specialize in the manufacture of new products and utensils. This, in turn, stimulates the feudal lord to introduce monetary rent. But even after changing the form of the lease there is a conflict of interests and the need to choose a progressive or fixed form of lease.
Organizational matters
At all levels of appropriation of rent, with all forms of development of the quitrent, controlling structures were needed. The monasteries, estates, and state that existed in the feudal era cannot be called the organizers of production, although, of course, they carried out the corresponding tasks to a certain extent.
Rather, they were an apparatus for collecting and centralizing surplus product from peasant and craft farms. These bodies, respectively, had a certain apparatus. It could consist of officials, managers, tax collectors.
An increase in the total burden inevitably led to a slower deepening of the antagonism of the exploiters and the class struggle between them and the exploited. At the same time, the confrontation between the feudal lords themselves over the appropriation of a share of the total rent was aggravated.