Some Problems in Measuring Differential Rent under Socialism

Abstract

Under the conditions of the socialist revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat, the nationalization of land means the transfer of it as the object of ownership and the object of management to the government. In economic terms this meant the abolition of the monopoly of private ownership of land and its economic expression - absolute rent - and the transfer to the government of the right to appropriate differential rent, to dispose over the land, and to determine the principles of land relations. The character of land relations changed radically. The latter no longer form between private owners, landowners, capitalist lessees, and hired workers but between the government as the owner of the land and socialist production collectives (collective and state farms) that receive land from the government for their exclusive use for farming. Socialist land relations are the relations between the government and production collectives with respect to the use of the land, which is the basic means of production of agricultural collectives but which is also public, government property.