The ENIGMA OF REAL ESTATE PRODUCTION

land rent and monopoly price in metropolitan-financial capitalism

Abstract

In the most accepted perspective on land rent from the transition from agrarian to urban, we can say that it is both extracted through the set of infrastructures and services (differential), as well as through the geographic situation (absolute) and fetish of the consumption of certain properties in specific places, which ascended to the heavens (of monopoly). The reading of the concept of land rent limited to Marxist analysis in Capital brought some important contributions, but we believe that the metamorphosis of land rent into real estate rent is central. Metropolitan-financial capitalism implies a capitalized rent from the production of space that is different from urban-industrial capitalism, despite the logic being the same with new determinations. Therefore, the emergence of a theory of rent based on contemporary spatial processes is imperative for us to think about the new contradictions of space. Thus, we seek to reflect on some theories and developments of land rent produced so far to shed light on real estate rent and the monopoly price of land, with a view to problematizing the theory of rent, often understood in the transposition of agrarian realities to urban.