Collected Works of V. I. Lenin - Vol. 13 - From Marx to Mao

304V. I. LENINlandlords introduced a clause in their leases compellingthe farmers to spend not less than £12 (about 110 rubles)per acre on their farms, instead of £8, as formerly. Thelandlords thus took into account the progress in sociallynecessary agricultural technique which took place as aresult of the repeal of the Corn Laws.The question now arises: what form of additional rentdoes the tenant appropriate during the term of his lease?Is it only absolute rent, or is it also differential rent? Itis both. For had Pyotr Maslov taken the trouble to understandMarx before “criticising the rough notes” so amusingly,he would have known that differential rent is obtained notonly from different plots of land, but also from differentoutlays of capital on the same plot.*Thirdly (we apologise to the reader for wearying himwith this long list of blunders which Maslov commits inevery sentence; but what else can we do if we have to dealwith such a “prolific” Konfusionsrat—a “muddled counsellor”,as the Germans say?)—thirdly, Maslov’s argumentabout the last and last but one investment is based on thenotorious “law of diminishing returns”. Like the bourgeoiseconomists, Maslov recognises that law (and, to make itlook important, even calls this stupid invention a fact).Like the bourgeois economists, Maslov connects that lawwith the theory of rent, declaring with the audacity of onewho is utterly ignorant of theory, that “if it were not forthe fact that the productivity of the last outlays of capitaldiminishes, there would be no such thing as ground rent”(p. 114).For a criticism of this vulgar bourgeois “law of diminishingreturns” we refer the reader to what I said in 1901in opposition to Mr. Bulgakov.** On that question there isno essential difference between Bulgakov and Maslov.* Marx calls the differential rent obtained from the differencein various plots Differential Rent I; and that obtained from the differencein the productivity of additional outlays of capital on the sameplot he calls Differential Rent II. In the “rough notes” in Volume III,that distinction is brought out in scrupulous detail (Part VI, Chapters39-43) and one must be a “critic of Marx” after the manner of theBulgakovs “not to notice” it. 122** See present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 107-119.—Ed.