ABSTRACT
Karl Marx's point is that, unlike a peasant household or Robinson Crusoe on an island, in a commodity-producing society there is no conscious determination of the social division of labour. Marx identifies his object of examination as 'the capitalist mode of production, and the relations of production and forms of intercourse that correspond to it'. A commodity may be the outcome of most complicated labour, but through its value it is posited as equal to the product of simple labour. Marx has another explanation for the tendency of the rate of profits to fall. Marx's theory of ground-rent is amongst his least discussed theories. His theory of rent is effectively an attempt to fuse David Ricardo's theory of rent with that of Adam Smith's. Thus, the labour-saving technical change is introduced as an endogenous solution of the system to the excess demand for labour problem.
