This liberal, astute economist, like many others on both the liberal and conservative wing of capitalist thinking, are often critical of contemporary capitalist practices. Frequently they refer back with reverence to the early days of capitalism when, in their view, markets were really free and small entrepreneurs had a lot more freedom to succeed by combining labor, resources, and wealth to produce more wealth. You see, at the present stage of capitalism one finds Goliath corporations who, in large part, control markets and access to resources.
Hudson refers to Adam Smith's and others condemnation of feudal land rents as unearned income and, thus, not justifiable. Thus, Smith argued for a labor theory of value except that it had a certain twist to it...
...in a more advanced society the market price is no longer proportional to labor cost since the value of the good now includes compensation for the owner of the means of production....Thus, they argued that such land should be taxed along with natural monopolies like roads, utilities, harbors, etc., but not income derived from labor produced wealth, that is, wealth that they received through their capitalist enterprises.
Much of feudal land had been inherited or conquered or both, and comprised most of the land in these European countries. The class that owned and controlled the land constituted the feudal aristocracy and landlord class. The new rising class of capitalists were learning how to use rented labor (wage slaves) and/or actual slaves, and rudimentary forms of mechanization to transform natural resources into goods which were sold at a profit and appropriated by capitalists. Under feudal laws, land was not a commodity to be bought and sold; and the serfs were not available for wage slavery. This put roadblocks in the way of capitalists who needed land and labor markets for their activities. This conflict eventually resulted in dramatic changes by revolutions in France and the US, and more gradual assumptions of power by the new class in most other European countries.
That natural propensity of capitalism, to grow incessantly, inevitably produces increasing concentrations of capital and control over labor, resources, and societies as a whole. What these liberal economists regard as the "cute little baby" of capitalism has simply grown up to be the monster that it is.
However, what we are now seeing is a new phenomenon. The huge scale of capitalist enterprise is now coming up against the limits of resource exhaustion and the consequences of climate change caused by their polluting industries. Hence, the capitalist class is finding it easier to get their wealth fixes by...
turning the U.S. economy into a neofeudal economy increasingly indebted to creditors, enjoying their revenue and “capital” gains (mainly land-price gains that John Stuart Mill’s generation called the “unearned increment”) at the top of the economic pyramid.And if we continue to let them have their way, we will experience one catastrophe after another until human and other life forms will be threatened.
