Brett Christophers - Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?

RENTIER CAPITALISM

Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It?

Brett Christophers

First published by Verso 2020
Brett Christophers 2020

All rights reserved

The moral rights of the author have been asserted

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Verso

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Verso is the imprint of New Left Books

ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-972-6

ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-973-3 (UK EBK)

ISBN-13: 978-1-78873-974-0 (US EBK)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh
Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon CR0 4YY

The current transformation of capitalism is characterised by a full-fledged comeback and proliferation of forms of rent.

Carlo Vercellone, 2008

Lets talk about the real money. The Westminster government claims to champion an entrepreneurial society, of wealth creators and hard-working families, but the real rewards and incentives are for rent.

George Monbiot, 2014

Contents

Working with Verso on this book has been a privilege and a pleasure. My sincere thanks go to my editor, Sebastian Budgen, for believing in the book; to Charles Peyton, for superb copy-editing; and to Duncan Ranslem, for bringing the final product to fruition.

Another privilege is having colleagues who not only are prepared to make the commitment of reading and commenting on ones work, but in whose scholarly judgement one is able to place unalloyed trust. Greta Krippner and Geoff Mann represent such colleagues for me. Both read the whole manuscript and made invaluable suggestions for its improvement. I am deeply grateful. I am also grateful to two other readers of the whole text: Sebastian Budgen, and an anonymous referee that he commissioned. Needless to say, I bear all the responsibility for the arguments developed in the book, and especially for any errors of fact or interpretation.

My biggest thanks go to my family: Agneta, Elliot, Oliver and Emilia. Living with you is the biggest privilege of all. You are all awesome, and I love you with all my heart.

Uppsala, March 2020

Few people in the United Kingdom, let alone further afield, have heard of Arqiva. But if you have lived in the UK in recent decades, or even just visited there, the chances are that you have used services that Arqiva plays a pivotal role in facilitating. Watch television? Listen to the radio? Use a mobile device? If you have done any of those things in the UK, Arqiva has likely enabled you to do so.