ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book presents a first view of the social relations of land development. It explains in detail why the categories of rent Marx derived from the analysis of nineteenth-century agriculture cannot simply be transposed to the contemporary construction industry. In contract building the role of rent can only be indirect — via the forces acting on the builder's client — since the contractor is insulated from struggles over rent. The book also examines the relationship between theory and the actual praxis of the working-class movement in Italy. It reviews the contemporary planning and land-development problems confronting the labour movement, concentrating on the British experience but with parallels drawn elsewhere. Particular importance is attached to the changing structure of financial capital and its behaviour in the face of profitability crises in the UK.
