Rent, interest, profit

Abstract

This paper advances the case for the abolition of rent, interest, and profit. Rent, interest, and profit often appear perfectly normal for those living and working in capitalist economies, and are made to look normal in capitalist economics, the media, the capitalist state, and more generally by those who benefit from these forms of income without working. Because of the basic systemic violence on which they rest, however, rent, interest, and profit also produce resentment, criticism, refusal, and, at times, organised resistance. Systematic political organisation against the practices of rent, interest, and profit has been and should still be at the basis of Left politics. By this same measure, almost all so-called ‘Left’ parliamentary parties in Aotearoa New Zealand and elsewhere have given up the game. What is developed here is not another lament about what has been lost. Rather, this paper seeks to give some conceptual clarity to the need to organise politically, with a clear intent of victory, against rent, interest, and profit.