"But it is silly to conclude, as Smith does, that since the landlord exploits every benefit which comes to society ||X, 3| the interest of the landlord is always identical with that of society. (op. cit., Vol. I, p. 230.) In the economic system, under the rule of private property, the interest which an individual has in society is in precisely inverse proportion to the interest society has in him – just as the interest of the usurer in the spendthrift is by no means identical with the interest of the spendthrift.

We shall mention only in passing the landlord’s obsession with monopoly directed against the landed property of foreign countries, from which the Corn Laws [16], for instance, originate. Likewise, we shall here pass over medieval serfdom, the slavery in the colonies, and the miserable condition of the country folk, the day-labourers, in Great Britain. Let us confine ourselves to the propositions of political economy itself."



Karl Marx
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844
Rent of Land

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