Global Rentier Capitalism Theory and Development

Critical Introduction

Balihar Sanghera

Part I: Historical lessons

1. Rival benchmarks for measuring rent: a history of incoherence and a solution for discussion                     

Beth Stratford

2. Henry George, economic solutionalism and the reappearance of economic rent                            

Linsey McGoey

3. Grounding rent in value: considering the price of fungible rents for rentier capitalism studies                    

Joe Collins

Part II: Theoretical developments

4.Rentier regimes and the Régulation Theory: an overview                                   

Adrien Faudot and Julien Vercueil

5. Rentierism and speculation in a finance-led capitalism                                      

Luiz Fernando de Paula and Antonio Alves Jr.

6. Big Tech: four emerging forms of digital rentiership                                                         

Kean Birch and D.T. Cochrane

7. Rentierism and the question of capitalist development         

Kevin R. Cox

Part III: Studies of rentierism in the Global North

8. Urban entrepreneurs as global rentiers: real estate clientelism and hegemony in Belgium and Spain

Callum Ward and Javier Moreno Zacarés

9. Labour, labour law and capitalist rent-seeking: rentier capitalism and labour in historical perspective              

Eric Tucker

10. The labour economics of rents in the Global North                                           

Philippe Askenazy

11. US rentierism, hegemony and militarism: corporate harm and state violence                                             

Balihar Sanghera

Part IV: Studies of rentierism in the Global South

12. Mozambique: turning a poor country into a rentier state

Joseph Hanlon

13. Rentier capitalism and global economic imaginaries in Central Asia

Balihar Sanghera and Elmira Satybaldieva

14. Rentier income and mass-based financialisation: the limits of redistributive policies during the Pink Tide in Brazil

Fernando Rugitsky and Pedro Romero Marques

15. Surplus, rent, and unequal development: raw materials and remittances as the motor of rent societies in the Global South?

Hannes Warnecke-Berger

16. The rentier economies in Latin America

Ilán Bizberg

17. Concluding remarks                                                                                            

Balihar Sanghera

Bibliography                                                                                                                              

Index                                                                

Biography

Balihar Sanghera is Reader in Sociology at the University of Kent. His research has focused on class, morality and rentier capitalism in Central Asia. He has published in leading journals, including the Cambridge Journal of Economics, Capital and Class, Theory and Society, International Sociology and The Sociological Review. He is a co-author with Elmira Satybaldieva of Rentier Capitalism and Its Discontents: Power, Morality and Resistance in Central Asia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) and co-editor with Gideon Calder of Ethics, Economy and Social Science: Dialogues with Andrew Sayer (Routledge, 2022).

This is an excellent collection of case studies on how rentier capitalism hampers industrial growth and raises the cost structure of countries, privatising what a century ago was expected to be public infrastructure that provided basic services at subsidised prices or even freely for basic needs. This book is the first volume of its kind that looks at rentier capitalism from a global perspective, and it is a must-read for everyone interested in political economy and the crisis of today’s capitalism. It will appeal to those who want to know how rentier capitalism differs from the 19th-century ethic of industrial capitalism, which aimed at freeing the market from a landlord class and its economic rent, and from monopolies and financial overhead. The optimistic conclusion is that there is an alternative to such rentier overhead. Only by recognising its detrimental cost can economies be freed from such charges. This book is an excellent start.

- Professor Michael Hudson, University of Missouri

A timely and fascinating account of rentier capitalism. From early philosophers such as Aristotle, through religious prohibitions of usury, to popular writers such as Henry George, there has been deep concern about incomes derived simply through ownership. Today, rentier income is a major source of economic inequality. Whether you agree or disagree on the details, there is no doubt about the importance of the topic.

- Geoffrey M. Hodgson, Emeritus Professor, Loughborough University London

Entrepreneurs’ capitalism is the past. Global Rentier Capitalism deals with the central issue of rents and their main beneficiaries, rentiers and financiers. I wholeheartedly welcome this critical collection of essays.

- Luiz Carlos Bresser-Pereira, Emeritus Professor, Getulio Vargas Foundation