The Peculiarities of Land Rent Expressed by the Composition of Agricultural Capital and Agricultural Wage Labor

Yanan Wang ()
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Yanan Wang: Xiamen University

Chapter Chapter 28 in The Basic Theory of Chinese Economy, 2026, pp 179-184 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract In this section, I examine how the composition of agricultural capital and the forms of agricultural wage labor shape the peculiarities of land rent in China. I argue that even where landownership is highly concentrated, agricultural operation remains largely decentralized and small-scale, and many landlords retain part of their land for direct cultivation while leasing out the rest. This coexistence of large-scale ownership with small-scale operation affects both the organic composition of agricultural capital—marked by scarce machinery and weak constant-capital investment—and the character of rural wage labor, which often remains tied to land-based dependence rather than to fully capitalist relations. On this basis, I show why land, rather than capital invested in land, continues to function as the central lever of surplus appropriation, and why modern capitalist forms of land rent and wage labor remain difficult to establish on a broad scale.

Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-981-95-6330-2_28

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DOI: 10.1007/978-981-95-6330-2_28

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