Das Kapital sciences published before 1950. In "Das Kapital" (1867), Marx proposes that the motivating force of capitalism is in the exploitation of labor, whose unpaid work is the ultimate source of surplus value. The owner of the means of production is able to claim the right to this surplus value because he or she is legally protected by the ruling regime through property rights and the legally established distribution of shares which are by law only to be distributed to company owners and their board members. The historical section shows how these rights were acquired in the first place chiefly through
Differential and absolute ground rent Differential and absolute ground rent Differential ground rent and absolute ground rent are concepts used by Karl Marx in the third volume of Das Kapital to explain how the capitalist mode of production would operate in agricultural production, under the condition where most agricultural land was owned by a social class of land-owners who obtained rent income from those who farmed the land. The farm work could be done by the landowner himself, the tenant of the landowner, or by hired farm workers. Rent as an economic category is regarded by Marx as one form of surplus value just like