Rent-capitalism and Unequal Development in the Middle East: the Case of Iran

Eckart Ehlers

Chapter 2 in Work, Income and Inequality, 1983, pp 32-61 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Rent-capitalism is widely discussed in recent German-speaking economic and social geography. Developed in the late 1950s by the Austrian geographer Hans Bobek in connection with a theory of ‘the main stages in socio-economic evolution from a geographical point of view’, Bobek tried to discern six stages of social and economic evolution: (a) the food gathering stage; (b) the stage of specialised collectors, hunters and fishermen; (c) the stage of clan-peasantry with pastoral nomadism as a subsidiary branch; (d) the stage of feudally or autocratically organised agrarian societies; (e) the stage of early urbanism and rent-capitalism; and (f) the stage of productive capitalism, industrial society and modern urbanism. Rent-capitalism, defined as a genuine socio-economic stage of its own, especially in the development of hydraulic civilisations (Wittfogel, 1956), has — according to Bobek — emerged in the early Middle East in connection with the upspring of the early city and temple-states both in Egypt and Mesopotamia and has persevered with slight changes and adaptions until our times. The theory of rent-capitalism is well suited for between organisation of production, system of payment, income distribution and employment.

Keywords: Income Distribution; Middle East; Land Tenure; Productive Capitalism; Land Reform (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1983
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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-05417-6_2

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