Class, Assets and Work in Rentier Capitalism

Marx, John Maynard Keynes and mainstream Western economics agree on few things, but one clear common point is their view on rent. For all three, rent represents a marginal, residual or transient phenomenon within capitalism. Of course, Marx emphasised rentierism in the form of land, thus viewing rentiers as remnants of feudalism. But what perplexed Marx was that, in the industrial capitalist society of the nineteenth century, landed rentiers did not disappear; on the contrary, they remained capable of appropriating part of the surplus value created by workers in production. Keynes, for his part, focused on rentierism in its financial form. Unlike Marx’s attitude toward landed rentierism, Keynes did not regard financial rentierism as an anachronistic relic of a bygone era that ought to disappear. Instead, he believed that financial rentierism would vanish under appropriate conditions. His argument was that a further abundance of capital—which he highly affirmed—would lead to the “euthanasia” of the financial rentier. Meanwhile, mainstream Western economics treats rent as an anomaly to an idealised norm, a phenomenon marginal both historically and theoretically. The whole of mainstream economics is constructed around the expectation that competition will ultimately prevail in market systems. Except in a few special industries where monopoly is deemed necessary or even functional, rentierism—understood in this tradition as the extraction of super-profits—will inevitably be eroded.

马克思、约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯（John Maynard Keynes）和西方主流经济学达成一致的地方并不多，但其中一个明显的共同点就是关于租金（rent）的看法。对于上述三者而言，租金都代表着资本主义中边缘的、残余的或短暂的现象。当然，马克思强调土地形式的食利主义（rentierism），因此将食利者视为封建主义的残余。但让马克思感到困惑的是，在19世纪的工业资本主义社会，土地食利者并未消失，相反，他们仍有能力攫取工人在生产中创造的部分剩余价值。凯恩斯则侧重于关注金融形式的食利主义。与马克思对土地食利主义的态度不同，凯恩斯并不认为金融食利主义是不合时宜的、理应消失的旧时代的遗物。相反，他认为，金融食利主义在适当的情况下才会消失。他的论点是，资本的进一步充裕——他高度肯定这一点——将会导致金融食利者的“安乐死”。与此同时，西方主流经济学将租金视为理想化规范的一种反常现象，一种历史上和理论上的边缘现象。整个主流经济学都是围绕着市场体系中竞争通常最终会占上风这一预期而构建的。除了在那些将垄断视为必要的甚至是功能性的少数特殊行业外，食利主义——在这一传统中被理解为攫取超额利润——将不可避免地受到侵蚀。

Yet the reality of the early twenty-first century clearly does not conform to the views of Marx, Keynes or mainstream economics. Land rent has not disappeared, financial rent has not disappeared, and, contrary to the mainstream view, rent in general has not disappeared. Rentierism has proven to be extremely tenacious. As a large body of research represented over the past decade by Thomas Piketty’s *Capital in the Twenty-First Century* has shown, the importance of rent for contemporary capitalism far exceeds what Marx or Keynes imagined, and also exceeds what mainstream economics permits. In countries such as Britain, the dominance of rent and rentiers has reached a depth and breadth unseen since the end of the nineteenth century, so it is no exaggeration to say that we live in an era of rentier capitalism.

然而，21世纪初的现实显然不符合马克思、凯恩斯和主流经济学的观点。地租并没有消失，金融租金也没有消失，与主流观点相反，一般租金也没有消失。事实证明，食利主义是极其顽固的。正如过去10年间以托马斯·皮凯蒂（Thomas Piketty）的《21世纪资本论》为代表的大量研究所表明的那样，租金对于当代资本主义的重要性远远超出了马克思或凯恩斯的想象，也超出了主流经济学所允许的范围。在英国这样的国家，租金和食利者的主导地位达到了自19世纪末以来前所未有的深度和广度，因此说我们生活在一个食利资本主义的时代并不过分。

If commentators generally agree that rentierism has revived, they also generally acknowledge that the intensification of capitalism’s rentier character compels us to rethink previously entrenched concepts of class and inequality. However, there is little consensus on how to think about this or to what extent. This article is published precisely against this specific academic background and has three main objectives, corresponding to the three main sections of the article. The first section will review recent influential arguments about rent, class and inequality. I argue that, while insightful, these arguments overlook one of the most fundamental features of rentier capitalism: the majority of rent-generating assets in society are owned not by individuals or households, but by corporations. The second section examines how this corporate ownership shapes the relationship between class, assets and work, and hypothesises that a key feature of contemporary class positions and patterns of inequality is the hierarchical structuring of labour in capitalist society around different relationships to the assets that employers themselves own and from which they generate income. The third section examines the potential implications of these views for Marxist theory.

如果说评论家们普遍认可食利主义已经死灰复燃的说法，那么他们也会普遍承认，资本主义食利特征的强化要求我们重新思考过去固有的阶级概念和不平等概念。然而，对于如何思考以及思考到何种程度的问题还罕有共识。本文正是在这一特定的学术背景下发表的，主要有三个目标，这也与文章的三个主要部分相对应。第一部分将回顾近期关于租金、阶级和不平等的有影响力的论点。笔者认为，这些论点虽然具有启发性，但却忽视了食利资本主义最基本的特征之一：社会上大部分产生租金的资产（assets）并非由个人或家庭所有，而是由公司所有。第二部分考察这种公司所有权如何塑造阶级、资产与工作之间的关系，并假设当代阶级地位和不平等模式的一个关键特征是：围绕与雇主自己拥有的并从中创收的资产的不同关系，资本主义社会对劳动力进行了等级结构化。第三部分考察这些观点对马克思主义理论的潜在影响。

Before proceeding, it is necessary to clarify the definition of rent. The concept of “rent” has been given different meanings in different periods and schools of thought. As noted, in mainstream economics, rent represents super-profit, specifically super-profit arising from a lack of market competition—the less competition in the market, the higher the rent. For Marx, rent had an entirely different meaning: the income obtained by a landowner from leasing their property is ground-rent. In what follows, rent is understood as income obtained through the ownership, possession or control of scarce assets under conditions of limited or no competition. This understanding extends Marx’s theory of rent in two senses. First, it broadens the type of assets: assets that earn rent are not necessarily land, but may also be intellectual property (e.g., pharmaceutical patents), digital platforms, or, as Keynes proposed, interest-bearing loan capital. Second, this extended understanding of rent incorporates recognition of the importance of the market conditions under which such income is realised.

在展开论述前，有必要先明确租金的定义。“租金”这个概念在不同的时期、不同的学派中被赋予了不同的含义。如前所述，在主流经济学中，租金代表超额利润，具体地说，是由于市场缺乏竞争而产生的超额利润，市场越缺乏竞争，租金就越高。而租金在马克思那里又完全是另一种含义，即土地所有者出租其财产所获得的收入就是地租。在下文中，租金被理解为在有限竞争或无竞争条件下通过拥有、占有或控制稀缺资产而获得的收入。这种理解从两个意义上对马克思关于租金的理论进行了延伸。首先，它扩大了资产类型：赚取租金的资产不一定是土地，还可能是知识产权（例如药品专利）、数字平台，或者凯恩斯提出的生息贷款资本。其次，对这种延伸后的租金的理解包含了对实现这种收入的市场条件的重要性的认识。

I. From Employment to Assets?

一、从就业到资产？

Traditionally, social theories of class stratification, including Marxist theory, have been closely tied to employment. Among them, income inequality reflects underlying, absolute inequalities in occupational positions, and more fundamentally, reflects different relationships between different occupational positions and what is commonly referred to as the means of production—that is, raw materials, factory facilities, machinery, tools, and so on. For example, in the influential work of Erik Olin Wright, the main axis of class differentiation is the relationship between owners and workers. Workers are then classified according to their relationship to scarce skills—are they experts, skilled workers, or unskilled workers?—and according to their relationship to power—are they managers, supervisors, or neither? In terms of class, unskilled workers without power are furthest from owners; expert managers are closest to owners. Little consideration is given to asset ownership beyond the means of production, such as ownership of land, financial assets, intellectual property, or infrastructure assets, nor to the wealth these assets carry and the income they generate.

传统上，包括马克思主义理论在内的关于阶级分层的社会理论，都与就业紧密相关。其中，收入不平等反映了职业地位中潜在的、绝对的不平等，更根本的是，反映了不同职业地位与通常所说的生产资料——即原材料、工厂设施、机器、工具等——的不同关系。例如，在埃里克·欧林·赖特（Erik Olin Wright）的颇具影响力的著作中，阶级分化的主轴就是所有者与工人之间的关系。然后，根据工人与稀缺技能的关系对工人进行分类——他们是专家、熟练工人，还是非熟练工人？再根据工人与权力的关系对工人进行分类——他们是经理、主管，亦或两者皆非？就阶级而言，没有权力的非技术工人与所有者的关系最远；专家型经理与所有者的关系最近。人们很少考虑生产资料以外的资产所有权，例如土地、金融资产、知识产权、基础设施的资产所有权，也很少考虑这类资产承载的财富及其产生的收入。

When this article uses the term “asset,” it refers to this type of asset. Traditional class theory, while acknowledging these other assets, values and incomes, tends to subsume them under the employment relationship. For example, early twentieth-century Marxists certainly recognised the existence in countries like Britain of a class for whom land ownership was far more important than factory or machine ownership, or even than employment income, but this recognition was never truly integrated into Marx’s concept of class.

本文使用“资产”（asset）一词时，指的是这种类型的资产。传统的阶级理论在承认这些其他资产、价值和收入的同时，往往会将其归于雇佣关系。例如，20世纪早期的马克思主义者当然承认在英国这样的国家存在着这样一个阶级，对于他们来说，土地所有权远比工厂或机器所有权更重要，甚至比就业收入更重要，但这种认识从未真正融入马克思的阶级概念。

Only recently have assets and asset ownership begun to occupy a more prominent place in the conceptualisation of class and inequality. In this regard, Piketty’s work is undoubtedly significant. *Capital in the Twenty-First Century*, published in 2014, is not usually considered a book about class, but as Piketty himself pointed out in response to a series of comments, it is a book about class. Moreover, this book not only addresses how inequality in individual and household asset ownership, along with inequality in employment income, shapes class, but also, at least to some extent, focuses more attention on the important place of assets and asset ownership in the conceptualisation of class and inequality, with a particular analysis of the intensification of wealth inequality in recent decades resulting from the rate of income growth falling below the rate of return on existing assets.

直到最近，资产和资产所有权才开始在阶级和不平等的概念化中占据更加重要的位置。在这方面，皮凯蒂的著作无疑具有重要意义。2014年出版的《21世纪资本论》通常并不被认为是一本关于阶级的著作，但正如皮凯蒂本人在回应一系列评论时指出的那样，这就是一本关于阶级的著作。此外，这本著作不仅讲述了个人和家庭资产所有权的不平等以及就业收入的不平等如何塑造阶级，并且，至少在一定程度上，这本著作更加关注资产和资产所有权在阶级和不平等概念中的重要位置，重点分析了近几十年来由于收入增长率低于现有资产的回报率所导致的财富不平等加剧。

Following closely after Piketty is Guy Standing, whose 2016 book *The Corruption of Capitalism* is another important work on class, inequality, and the growing role of individual or household assets. Standing proposes a new method of class division, based not only on occupational position but also on whether one possesses assets.

紧随皮凯蒂之后的是盖伊·斯坦丁(Guy Standing)，他于2016年出版的《资本主义的腐败》（The Corruption of Capitalism）一书是另一本关于阶级、不平等以及个人或家庭资产所扮演的角色不断增强的重要著作。斯坦丁提出了一种新的阶级划分方法，即不仅以职业地位，还以是否拥有资产来进行划分。

Lisa Adkins, Melinda Cooper, and Martijn Konings have further developed these arguments. They are concerned with "the impact of asset inflation on structures of inequality," especially in large Western cities (they take Sydney as a case study to examine this changing world), arguing that new patterns of asset ownership, the rapid inflation of asset prices, and stagnant wage levels have created "new, complex dynamics" for class stratification that cannot be harmoniously reconciled with "views that continue to treat employment as the primary determinant of class." They ask rhetorically: how can a work-based class model accommodate a situation in which the appreciation of a medium-sized residence in a large Western city within a single year often far exceeds the savings capacity of a middle-class wage-earning household? Their answer is that the old model cannot accommodate this new situation, and they therefore propose a class analysis framework that emphasizes asset ownership rather than attributing it to theoretical models still structurally based on labor and occupational status.

丽莎·阿德金斯（Lisa Adkins）、梅琳达·库珀（Melinda Cooper）和马丁·科宁斯（Martijn Konings）又进一步发展了这些论点。他们关心“资产膨胀对不平等结构的影响”，尤其是在西方大城市（他们以悉尼作为案例来审视这个不断变化的世界），认为资产所有权的新模式、资产价格的快速膨胀和工资水平的停滞不前，为阶级分层创造了“新的、复杂的动力机制”，这并不能与“继续将就业作为阶级的主要决定因素”的观点和谐相容。他们反问道，以工作为基础的阶级模式如何适应这样一种情况，即西方大城市的中型住宅在一年之内的升值幅度往往远远超过中产阶级工薪阶层的储蓄能力？他们的答案是，旧的模式无法适应这种新情况，并因此提出了一个阶级分析框架。该框架强调资产所有权，而不是将其归因于仍然以劳动和职业地位为结构基础的理论模式。

All these discussions—those of Piketty, Standing, and Adkins et al.—make important contributions. However, the latter two perhaps overstate the importance of individual and household asset ownership. Although Adkins, Cooper, and Konings emphasize the importance of asset ownership, they still insist on the continuing significance of the employment relationship, which makes their dismissal of occupational status seem particularly hasty. The relationship between asset ownership and position in the division of labor becomes a key issue. Adkins, Cooper, and Konings put forward a strong claim that "position in the hierarchy of asset ownership overdetermines the wage relation." Yet, without acknowledging the profound impact of employment income on asset ownership, it is difficult to explain the close connection between employment income and asset ownership. Employment may indeed not be a sufficient condition for obtaining property rights, but it is a typical necessary condition.

所有这些讨论——皮凯蒂、斯坦丁和阿德金斯等人的讨论——都做出了重要的贡献。但是，后两者或许过于夸大了个人和家庭资产所有权的重要性。阿德金斯、库珀和科宁斯虽然强调了资产所有权的重要性，但仍坚持雇佣关系的持续重要性，这使得他们对职业地位的贬低显得尤为草率。资产所有权与劳动分工中的地位之间的关系成为了一个关键问题。阿德金斯、库珀和科宁斯提出了一个强有力的主张，即“资产所有权等级制度中的地位过度决定了工资关系”。然而，如果不承认就业收入对资产所有权的深刻影响，就很难解释就业收入与资产所有权之间的密切联系。就业的确可能不是获得房产权的充分条件，却是典型的必要条件。

There is also the question of the specificity and representativeness of the theory that Adkins, Cooper, and Konings propose based on the local experience of Sydney. However, these are not the main focus of this article. This article aims to explore not only the analysis of Adkins, Cooper, and Konings but also the analyses of Piketty and Standing. As we have seen, these analyses all attempt to rethink class and inequality because assets other than the means of production have been largely neglected by traditional class theory, and these assets appear to be becoming increasingly important for wealth holding and income flows. In doing so, they pay particular attention to residential real estate assets. But contemporary capitalism has other valuable assets, and, crucially, these assets are rarely primarily owned by individuals or households but are mainly held by corporations. So how do corporate ownership and exploitation of income-generating assets shape patterns of class and inequality? And how should we view class and inequality in the face of assets outside the scope of work that are held not by individuals but by the companies for which they work? These are the questions we now turn to.

还有一个问题是阿德金斯、库珀和科宁斯基根据悉尼的地方经验提出的理论的特殊性和代表性问题。然而，这些不是本文要重点讨论的内容。本文不仅要探讨阿德金斯、库珀和科宁斯的分析，还要探讨皮凯蒂和斯坦丁的分析。正如我们所看到的，这些分析都试图重新思考阶级和不平等问题，因为除生产资料之外的其他资产都在很大程度上被传统的阶级理论所忽视，而这些资产对财富的持有和收入的流动似乎变得越来越重要。在此过程中，他们尤其关注住宅房地产资产。但是，当代资本主义还有其他有价值的资产，而且，至关重要的是，这些资产很少主要由个人或家庭拥有，而是主要由公司持有。那么，企业对创收资产的所有权和剥削是如何形成阶级和不平等模式的呢？面对不是由个人、而是由他们为之工作的公司所持有的工作范围之外的资产，我们又应该如何看待阶级和不平等问题？这些就是我们现在要讨论的问题。

II. Class, Assets, and Work in Rentier Capitalism

二、食利资本主义中的阶级、资产和工作

In contemporary Western capitalist societies, there are mainly seven categories of assets that can generate income (rent) for the rentiers who own them. The first category is real estate assets, which we have already mentioned, and can be summarized as land and its attachments, including residential and commercial buildings; the second is financial assets; the third is intellectual property assets, including patents, trademarks, designs, and copyrights; the fourth is natural resources, such as hydrocarbons and precious metals; the fifth is platform assets, especially digital platforms, whose main value comes from intermediation that controls transactions between buyers and sellers; the sixth is long-term service contracts; the seventh and final category is infrastructure providing telecommunications, energy, transportation, and similar services. Within the categories of land and financial assets, individual or household ownership accounts for a significant proportion. Clearly, in many Western countries, land and buildings, especially housing, are commonly held by individuals, and financial assets are similarly held (though not entirely), mainly in the form of personal pensions. But large properties and financial assets are not held by households. In other words, corporations can also be rentiers. This is not to say that all corporate income must take the form of rent. A corporate rentier is a company whose income consists, even if not entirely, to a large extent of rent.

在当代西方资本主义社会中，主要有七类资产可以为拥有这些资产的食利者带来收入（租金）。第一类资产是我们已经提到过的房地产资产，我们可以将其概括为土地及其附属物，包括住宅楼和商业楼；第二类是金融资产；第三类是知识产权资产，包括专利、商标、外观设计和版权；第四类是自然资源，如碳氢化合物和贵金属；第五类是平台资产，特别是数字平台，其主要价值来自买卖双方之间起控制交易作用的中介；第六类是长期服务合同；第七类也是最后一种，是提供电信、能源、运输和类似服务的基础设施。在土地和金融类资产中，个人或家庭所有权占很大比重。显然，在许多西方国家，土地和建筑物，尤其是住房，普遍由个人持有，金融资产也是这样（并非全然如此），主要以个人养老金的形式持有。但是，大宗财产和金融资产并非由家庭持有。换句话说，公司也可以是食利者。这并不是说公司的所有收入都必须以租金的形式出现。企业食利者是指其收入即使不是全部、也在很大程度上由租金构成的公司。

None of the three studies mentioned in the previous section examine corporate assets. Since these studies are concerned with how asset ownership and exploitation shape patterns of class and inequality, they should consider these issues. The relevant situation in the financial industry helps illustrate the related problems. Because in Western countries, many high-income earners are workers in the financial sector. Also consider the fact that the growth in income of these workers in recent times has been an important component of the more general phenomenon of rising income inequality.

上一部分中提及的三项研究都没有考察公司资产。由于这些研究关注的是资产所有权和剥削如何形成阶级和不平等的模式，因此它们应当考虑这些问题。金融业的相关情况有助于说明相关问题。因为在西方国家，许多高收入者都是金融部门的工作人员。还要考虑到这样一个事实，即近来这些工作人员收入的增长是收入不平等加剧这一更加普遍的现象的重要组成部分。

Is class and inequality ultimately about assets (and rent), or about work? Piketty, Standing, and Adkins et al. argue that the answer is work. According to their research framework, this is unrelated to assets; the relevant income is remuneration for work employed by financial capitalists, not rent from financial assets they personally own. Of course, in reality this is a description involving work, assets, and rent. The lesson from the example of the financial industry is that individuals can derive significant benefits from the control of assets, thereby achieving class mobility, even if they do not control these assets themselves. Rent first flows to their employers and then flows to them in the form of wages and bonuses.

阶级和不平等究竟是关于资产（和租金）的描述，还是关于工作的描述？皮凯蒂、斯坦丁和阿德金斯等人认为答案是工作。根据他们的研究框架，这与资产无关，相关收入是受雇于金融资本家的工作报酬，而不是他们个人拥有的金融资产的租金。当然，实际上这是一个关于工作、资产和租金的描述。金融业的例子给我们的启示是，个人可以从资产控制中获得巨大利益，从而完成阶级跃迁，即使他们自己并不控制这些资产。租金首先流向他们的雇主，然后再以工资和奖金的形式流向他们。

Starting from this specific scenario, this article's hypothesis is that, in a capitalist economy increasingly structured around the seven categories of income-generating assets mentioned above, employees' ability to share in the rent generated by their company's assets is as important to their class position as their status (or lack thereof) as independent asset owners and income generators. If, as Standing argues, an employed worker who owns financial assets or residential assets enjoys a higher class status than one who does not, then their class status also depends on the extent of their participation in the income generation of corporate capital.

从这一特定情景出发，本文的假设是，在越来越多的围绕上述七类创收资产构建的资本主义经济中，雇员分享公司的资产所产生的租金的能力与他们的阶级地位、或许与他们作为独立资产所有者和创收者（或不作为独立资产所有者和创收者）的地位一样重要。如果如斯坦丁所说，一个拥有金融资产或住宅资产的雇佣劳动者比不拥有金融资产或住宅资产的雇佣劳动者享有更高的阶级地位，那么他的阶级地位也取决于其参与公司资本创收的程度。

This article preliminarily proposes a method for structurally thinking about this participation. The author believes that the nature of the relationship between employees' work and corporate assets is particularly important in this regard. In Wright's class schema, this work relationship with income-generating assets and its impact on class position can be seen as a consequence of the relationship between assets and scarce skills. Here, skill refers to the ability to perform work that has a certain perceived value relative to the assets.

本文初步提出了从结构上思考这种参与的方法。笔者认为，在这方面尤为重要的是雇员工作与公司资产之间关系的性质。在赖特的阶级图式中，这种与创收资产之间的工作关系及其对阶级地位的影响，可以被视为资产与稀缺技能之间关系的必然结果。在这里，技能是指执行相对于资产具有一定感知价值的工作的能力。

In short, how valuable are workers in their work on or related to assets? If this relationship affects the extent to which different categories of workers can participate in the rent-earning activities of the company, then it is a key factor determining workers' class position in the evolving pattern of inequality. The following identifies four general roles of workers in relation to corporate assets; in each case, these roles appear to generate class privilege; then, the article will briefly explore the work areas of workers who lack such privilege.

简言之，工人在资产上或与资产相关的工作上有多大价值？如果这种关系影响到不同类别的工人在多大程度上能够参与公司赚取租金的活动，那么它就是决定工人在不断演变的不平等模式中的阶级地位的关键因素。下文确定了与公司资产有关的四种一般工人的角色，在每种情况下，这些角色似乎都产生了阶级特权；然后，本文将简要探讨缺乏这种特权的工人的工作领域。

It must be emphasized that, in all cases, these roles and their assumed significance for class and inequality relations are, to a large extent, merely speculative hypotheses requiring further empirical and conceptual investigation. A key issue here concerns the nature of two relationships: one between work and assets, and the other between remuneration and class position. The belief that a particular role (such as a specific skill) is especially valuable does not necessarily mean it will always be valuable in practice. Of course, even in a social vacuum, value perceptions do not translate into material status. This depends heavily on the relative bargaining power of different groups.

需要强调的是，在所有的情况下，这些角色及其关于阶级和不平等关系的假定意义，在很大程度上都仅仅是需要在经验上和概念上进一步研究的推测性假设。这里有一个关键问题，它涉及两种关系的性质，一种是工作与资产之间的关系，另一种是报酬与阶级地位之间的关系。人们认为某一角色（比如某种特殊技能）特别有价值，并不意味着它在实践中必然总是有价值。当然，即使在社会真空中，价值观念也不会转化为物质地位。这在很大程度上取决于不同群体的相对议价能力。

Nonetheless, if the argument presented here has any merit, it implies that class remains largely tied to the division of labor. The difference is merely that, in rentier capitalism, the division of labor among workers increasingly depends on their respective relationships to income-generating assets, rather than to the means of production.

尽管如此，如果这里提出的论点有可取之处的话，那就意味着阶级在很大程度上仍然与劳动分工有关。不同之处只是在于，在食利资本主义中，工人之间的劳动分工日益取决于他们各自与创收资产的关系，而非与生产资料的关系。

(I) Creating Assets

（一）创造资产

An indisputable fact is that companies whose business is earning rents from proprietary assets—that is, rentier companies—must possess these assets in order to make money. However, while this is an indisputable fact, it is equally important that creating assets is the lifeline of the rentier. For without assets, there are no rents, and ultimately no rentiers. Therefore, in rentier-type companies, those who contribute to creating assets—and thereby to earning rents—are, without exception, the highest paid and sit at the top of the labor hierarchy. Another illustrative example is land. How are a company’s land assets “created”? Land must be purchased (or received as a gift); consequently, real estate companies will particularly generously reward employees who make significant contributions to increasing their land reserves. Contemporary rentier capitalism is less about striving to do valuable things than about striving to own valuable things (assets); it correspondingly rewards “acquiring–creating assets.” In the neoliberal period, as the outsourcing of non-core functions has developed into an unspoken strategic wisdom, long-term service contracts signed by private-sector and public-sector staff have become an important source of rents. Companies that bid for and execute such contracts represent a special type of enterprise.

一个不争的事实是，以用专有资产赚取租金为业务的公司，即食利公司，需要拥有这些资产才能赚钱。不过，尽管这是一个不争的事实，但它同样非常重要的是：创造资产是食利者的生命线。因为如果没有资产，就没有租金，最终也就没有食利者。因此，在食利型公司中，那些为创造资产、进而赚取租金做出贡献的人，无一例外都是收入最高的，他们处于劳动力等级的顶端。另一个具有启发性的例子是土地。公司的土地资产是如何“创造”出来的？土地必须是买来的（或作为礼物收到的），因此，房地产公司会特别慷慨地奖励那些为增加土地储备做出重大贡献的员工。当代的食利资本主义与其说是在努力做有价值的事情，不如说是在努力拥有有价值的东西（资产），它对“获得—创造资产”给予相应的奖励。在新自由主义时期，由于非核心职能的外包已发展成为一种不言自明的战略智慧，私营部门和公共部门职员签订的长期服务合同已成为租金的重要来源。竞标和执行此类合同的公司代表了一种特殊的企业类型。

(II) Realizing Asset Value

（二）实现资产价值

Capitalism is fundamentally future-oriented. Investors provide funds to companies not primarily based on what those companies have achieved in the past, nor even on what they are doing now. They invest in these companies’ future development—for bond investors, earning sufficient profits to pay interest and repay principal; for stock investors, earning sufficient profits to pay dividends and attract other investors with higher share prices. What makes investors believe the future will meet these rosy expectations?

资本主义从根本上说是面向未来的。投资者之所以向公司提供资金，主要不是看这些公司过去取得了什么成就，甚至也不关心它们现在正在做什么。他们投资的是这些公司未来的发展——对于债券投资者而言，要赚取足够的利润，以便能够支付利息和偿还本金；对于股票投资者而言，要赚取足够的利润，以便能够支付股息，并以更高的股价吸引其他投资者。是什么让投资者相信未来会符合这些美好的预期呢？

This is partly related to market conditions. Is there sufficiently strong demand for the products or services the company offers? Is the competitive environment relatively favorable or unfavorable? What is the political environment? More importantly, however, it concerns the company itself. Does it possess the necessary conditions for success? In this regard, assets are a crucial factor. To give investors confidence to invest, evidence—or something as close to evidence as possible—is needed to prove that the company’s assets can generate income. In short, investors need to see proof that the company’s assets have value, where “value” means the ability to generate future rents. Ultimately, investors demand that the company provide evidence that its book assets—defined by the dictionary as “valuable items owned”—are indeed assets.

这当然与市场条件有部分关系。人们是否对公司提供的产品或服务有足够强烈的需求？竞争环境是相对有利还是不利？政治环境如何？不过，更重要的是公司本身。它是否具备成功的必要条件？在这方面，资产是很重要的因素。若要让投资者有信心投资，就需要提供证据或者尽可能接近证据的东西来证明公司拥有的资产能够创造收入。简而言之，投资者需要看到证据来证明公司资产具有价值，这里的“价值”是指未来产生租金的能力。总之，投资者要求公司提供证据，证明账面资产——根据字典的定义，即“所拥有的有价值的物品”——确实是资产。

This promise of asset value—or “performance,” as it is always a form of performance—plays a fundamental role in capitalism, particularly rentier capitalism. It underpins all investment in rentier capitalist institutions. Because accountants must not only certify the existence of assets but also assign them a monetary value, accountants play an important, even underestimated, role in rentier capitalist society. After all, for investors, assets exist and have value only when accountants say they do. Therefore, the certifiers of asset existence and value may be as important as those who originally created the assets.

资产价值的这种承诺——或“表现”，因为它实际上总是某种表现——在资本主义、特别是食利资本主义中发挥着根本性的作用。它支撑着对食利资本主义机构的所有投资。由于会计师不仅要证明资产的存在，还要赋予其货币价值，因此，会计师在食利资本主义社会中扮演着重要的角色，甚至可以说是被低估了的角色。毕竟，对于投资者而言，只有会计师说资产存在并具有价值，资产才存在并具有价值。因此，资产存在和价值的证明人也许与最初创造资产的人同样重要。

(III) Protecting Assets

（三）保护资产

David Graeber argued that, within the British labor force, not only are accountants disproportionately represented, but lawyers are as well. In terms of the development of rentier capitalism, this is entirely understandable. Creating income-generating assets and assigning them value is one thing, but if those assets are subsequently damaged in some form (for example, if a sovereign state that authorized BP or Shell to extract hydrocarbons reneges on the original agreement), then the value and even the existence of those assets can be called into question. Over the economic lifecycle of an asset, lawyers are necessary to protect and safeguard the asset and its value. Consequently, they are among the highest-paid personnel in rentier-type companies.

大卫·格雷伯（David Graeber）认为，在英国的劳动人口中，不仅会计师的比例过高，律师的比例也过高。就食利资本主义的发展而言，这也完全可以理解。创造创收资产并赋予其价值是一件好事，但如果这些资产随后受到某种形式的损害（例如，授权英国石油公司或壳牌石油公司开采碳氢化合物的主权国家可能会违背最初的协议），那么这些资产的价值甚至存在都会受到质疑。在资产的经济生命周期内，律师对保护和保障资产及其价值而言是必要的。因此，他们是食利型公司中收入最高的人员之一。

The example of intellectual property assets is particularly instructive. Take patents, which grant a company or individual ownership of an invented product or process. Undoubtedly, the inventor of the product or process is a key figure. However, unless the product or process can be protected in some way from being copied by competitors, the company’s ability to profit from producing the product or using the process is likely to be impaired. Intellectual property law exists to grant these intellectual creations private property rights—in the case of patents, to assert that the product or process belongs to a specific entity. Arguably, those who successfully secure strong patent protection for a company’s product or process—namely, lawyers—are no less important to the company’s wealth than those who originally created the asset. Their remuneration and class status reflect this importance.

知识产权资产的例子尤其具有启发性。以专利为例，它赋予公司或个人对其发明的产品或工艺以所有权。毫无疑问，产品或工艺的发明者是关键人物。但是，除非能够以某种方式保护该产品或工艺不被竞争对手复制，否则公司从生产该产品或使用该工艺中获利的能力就很可能会受到损害。知识产权法的存在就是为了赋予这些智力创造以私人财产权——就专利而言，就是主张产品或工艺属于某一特定实体。可以说，那些成功为公司的产品或工艺取得有力的专利保护的人，即律师，对公司财富的重要性并不亚于最初创造该资产的人。他们的报酬和阶级地位也反映了这种重要性。

Corporate lawyers’ practice of intellectual property law is also not merely about ensuring and strengthening asset protection over the asset’s economic life, but also, where possible, about extending the life of patent protection. The term commonly used to describe this extension is “evergreening,” especially in the pharmaceutical industry. Sandeep Rathod defines evergreening as a strategy through which intellectual property owners “protect their product sales for a longer period than legally permitted.” Specifically in the pharmaceutical field, evergreening refers to a strategy by which “pharmaceutical patent-holding companies protect product sales/royalties beyond the original patent for the active drug.” Evergreening protects rents by extending the duration of asset protection.

公司律师的知识产权法实践也不仅仅是为了在资产的经济寿命期内确保和加强资产保护，在可能的情况下，也是为了延长专利保护的寿命。通常被用来描述这种延长的词是常青化（Evergreening），尤其是在制药行业。桑迪普·拉托德（Sandeep Rathod）将常青化定义为一种策略，通过这种策略，知识产权所有者“使其产品销售受到保护的时间比法律通常允许的时间更长”。具体到医药领域，常青化是指“药品专利控股公司保护活性药物原始专利之外的产品销售/特许权使用费”的策略。常青化通过延长资产保护的时间来保护租金。

Of course, there are other methods for protecting assets and their value. As many scholars studying assets and rentierism have noted, arguably the key quality enabling an asset to generate income is scarcity; it must be limited in some fundamental respect. Law is one way to maintain scarcity, but not the only one.

当然，还有其他方法可以用来保护资产及其价值。正如许多研究资产和食利主义的学者所指出的，可以说，资产能够产生收益的关键品质在于稀缺性，它必须在某些基本方面是有限的。法律是维持稀缺性的一种方式，但不是唯一的方式。

(IV) Maximizing Asset Rents

（四）实现资产租金最大化

Beyond creating assets, realizing asset value, and protecting assets, there is another category of important work relationships related to company assets that also tends to guarantee high wages and class status. We can deduce this category. If an asset already exists and is well protected from market competition, ensuring its ongoing scarcity, what (if anything) might still deprive its corporate owner of commercial success? The answer is obvious: any form of external market constraint that affects the revenue the company can create and retain through the commercial exploitation of the asset.

除了创造资产、发挥资产价值和保护资产之外，还有一类与公司资产有关的重要的工作关系也往往保证了高水平的工资和阶级地位。我们可以通过演绎来确定这类关系。如果一项资产已经存在，并且得到了很好的保护，避免了市场竞争，确保了其持续的稀缺性，那么还有什么（如果有的话）可能会剥夺其公司所有者的商业成功呢？答案显而易见：任何形式的来自市场外部的限制，都会影响公司通过对资产的商业开发所能创造和保留的收入。

Rent control in the housing sector is a good example. Many countries and regions have had or still have various forms of rent control, meaning that the amount of rent a landlord can charge is subject to some form of restriction. Decisions on rent control are sometimes made by politicians, sometimes by voters, but these decisions are usually made against the backdrop of active lobbying by the major owners of rental housing stock. Lobbyists are key figures in rentier institutions. In the case of rent control, if they can help persuade policymakers to relax existing controls or to refrain from introducing stricter measures, their lobbying work is considered valuable.

住房领域的租金管理就是一个很好的例子。许多国家和地区都有过或曾经有过各种形式的租金管理，即业主可以收取的租金数额受到某种形式的限制。作出租金管理决定的有时候是政治家，有时候是选民，但这些决定通常都是在租赁股票的主要所有者积极游说的背景下作出的。游说者是食利型机构的关键人物。就租金管理而言，如果他们能够帮助说服决策者放松现有的管制，或者不出台更加严格的管理措施，他们的游说工作就会被认为是有价值的。

Perhaps taxation is the most important general external constraint on rentiers’ ability to generate and retain income from their assets. No matter how substantial the asset-based rent may be when generated, if a large portion of it must be handed over to tax authorities, then that rent becomes insignificant to the company. Therefore, employees who succeed in keeping the company’s rent out of the hands of tax authorities are highly valued by their employers, and they too are handsomely compensated. Lobbyists play a key role here, often more or less “capturing” the government agencies responsible for setting tax rules for specific industries.

也许税收是对食利者利用其资产创造并保留收入的最重要的一般外部限制。无论基于资产的租金在产生时有多么可观，如果必须将其中的很大一部分上缴给税务机构的话，那么这些租金对公司而言也就微不足道了。因此，那些成功地使公司的租金不落入税务机构之手的员工就会受到雇主的高度重视，他们同样也会获得丰厚的报酬。游说者在这方面发挥着关键作用，他们经常或多或少地“俘获”负责制定特定行业税收制度的政府机构。

However, if lobbyists play an important role in enabling rentier institutions to avoid taxes and are well compensated for it, tax lawyers and tax accountants arguably play an even more important role in tax avoidance. A large number of cases show that well-known multinational corporations with substantial assets allocate reported income, costs, and taxable profits across countries with different tax rates in order to minimize their overall effective tax burden. Enterprises that operate in the digital world and possess digital assets have much greater scope for “shifting” profits in this way than many companies operating in the “real” world.

然而，如果说游说者在使食利机构避税方面发挥了重要作用，并获得了丰厚报酬，那么税务律师和税务会计师在避税方面的作用可以说更为重要。大量案例表明，资产雄厚的知名跨国公司会在税率不同的国家之间分配报告上去的收入、成本以及应税利润，以尽量减少其总体上的实际税负。在数字世界中经营并拥有数字资产的企业以这种方式“转移”利润时，比许多在“现实”世界中经营的公司有大得多的空间。

(V) Sweating for Assets

（五）为资产流汗

In most rentier-type, asset-intensive enterprises, the individual roles we have examined so far—creating assets, realizing asset value, protecting assets, resisting external attempts to limit rent creation and retention—account for only a small fraction of total employees, although they are well paid. In the eyes of their employers, most employees perform relatively undemanding, even more mundane work. Specifically, their working relationship with assets is fundamentally different: their job is to ensure that the daily tasks necessary for the company’s assets to continue generating cash are completed. In short, most employees’ work is to sweat for assets that others have created, cultivated, and refined. Their compensation is typically only a fraction of that received by those in more respected positions, and their class status is far removed from them.

在大多数食利型的、资产密集型的企业中，我们目前所探讨的个人角色——创造资产、实现资产价值、保护资产、抵制外部对创租和留租施加限制的企图——只占员工总数的一小部分，尽管他们收入不菲。在其雇主看来，大多数员工从事的是相对没有什么难度的、甚至更为平凡的工作。具体来说，他们与资产的工作关系截然不同，其工作是确保那些使公司资产能持续产生现金的日常任务得以完成。简而言之，大多数员工的工作就是为别人创造、培养和磨练出来的资产付出辛勤的汗水。他们的薪酬通常只相当于那些担任更受尊重的职务的人的一小部分，阶级地位也与那些人相去甚远。

As is well known, this is a broad category of employment, essentially including everyone except those engaged in the work described above. These people perform important, even indispensable, work tasks. However, while sweating for their employer’s assets, their working relationship with those assets is completely different from that of the colleagues mentioned above, and their employers value them much less. There is a chasm in wages and class status between those who “merely” sweat for the company’s assets and those who have a privileged working relationship with those assets, a fact evident in compensation data.

众所周知，这是一个宽泛的就业类别，基本上包括了除从事上述工作的人之外的所有人。这些人执行着重要的、甚至是必不可少的工作任务。但是，在为雇主的资产辛勤劳动的同时，他们与这些资产之间的工作关系却与上述同事截然不同，雇主对他们的重视程度也要低得多。在那些“仅仅”为公司资产辛勤劳动的人与那些同这些资产有特权工作关系的人之间，存在着工资和阶级地位上的鸿沟，这一点在薪酬数据中显而易见。

If, as Piketty, Standing, Adkins, Cooper, and Konings assert, contemporary class and inequality issues are closely linked to asset ownership, then rent-generating assets owned by companies rather than individuals are clearly an important component of this complex situation. In fact, an individual’s occupational position relative to these assets largely determines their wages and life chances.

如果正如皮凯蒂、斯坦丁、阿德金斯、库珀和科宁斯所断言的那样，当今的阶级和不平等问题与资产所有权密切相关，那么由公司而非个人拥有的创租资产显然是这种复杂情况中的重要组成部分。实际上，一个人的职业与这些资产的相对位置在很大程度上决定了他的工资和生活机会。

III. Class, Assets, and Work in Marx

三、马克思笔下的阶级、资产和工作

How would Marx view the types of work we have been considering—work performed for rentier companies on assets other than means of production? He would certainly recognize that landowners and banks—two main types of corporate rentiers in his time—employ workers to enable land and interest-bearing capital to “earn” income. But Marx considered this a very specific type of labor, namely unproductive labor, which creates neither value nor surplus value.

马克思如何看待我们一直在思考的工作类型，即为食利型公司在生产资料以外的资产进行的工作？他当然会认识到，土地所有者和银行——在他那个时代是两种主要的公司食利者——雇用工人，使土地和生息资本能够“赚取”收入。但马克思认为，这是一种非常特殊的劳动，即非生产性劳动，它不创造价值或剩余价值。

Conversely, only labor power consumed by capitalists who own the means of production and produce goods or services for market exchange is considered productive. If landowners and banks participate in the creation of surplus value by productive workers (landowners in the form of rent, banks in the form of interest), it is solely because they control land and financial assets, and this portion should be deducted from the profits of the aforementioned capitalists. The workers of landowners and banks, whether involved in creating, protecting, or extracting those assets, contribute nothing to creating the value that those asset owners seek to extract. As Marx pointed out, unproductive labor “is exchanged not with capital, but directly with revenue, that is, with wages or profit (and of course also with the various items that share in the capitalist’s profit, such as interest and rent).” [1]1 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 16.

相反，只有被拥有生产资料并生产用于市场交换的产品或服务的资本家所消耗的劳动力才被认为是生产性的。如果说土地所有者和银行参与了生产性工人（土地所有者以地租的形式，银行以利息的形式）创造剩余价值的活动，那纯粹是由于他们控制了土地和金融资产，并且这一部分应从上述资本家的利润中减去。土地所有者和银行的工人，无论是参与创造、保护还是榨取有关资产，都没有为创造那些资产所有者设法榨取的价值作出贡献。正如马克思所指出的，非生产性劳动“是不同资本交换，而直接同收入即工资或利润交换的劳动（当然也包括同参与分享资本家利润者的各个项目，如利息和地租相交换的劳动）”。

To avoid misunderstanding, two points need clarification. The first concerns a point already established: that corporate rentiers’ income often comes both from control over an asset (e.g., a pharmaceutical patent) and from work performed in providing the product or service underwritten by that asset (e.g., a patented drug). In such cases, according to Marx, at least part of the labor employed by the rentier is productive. Only labor exchanged for rent (the reward the rentier receives for controlling the asset) and applied to the asset itself is unproductive.

为了避免被误解，这里有两点需要澄清。第一点是关于前面已经确定的一点：即企业食利者的收入往往既来自对某项资产（如医药专利）的控制，也来自在提供由该资产承保的产品或服务（如专利药品）的过程中所从事的工作。在这种情况下，按照马克思的说法，食利者雇用的劳动至少有一部分是生产性的。只有与租金（租借者因控制资产而获得的报酬）交换并用于资产本身的劳动才是非生产性的。

Second, not all of what Marx called unproductive labor is related to rent; the unproductive labor employed by rentiers is merely a subset of Marx’s broader category. Perhaps most notable is what Marx called “commercial workers,” who take products created by productive labor to market for sale. In *Capital*, Marx notes that commercial labor, like productive labor, is exchanged with capital, but like labor exchanged for rent, it is unproductive, because it does not create value but rather realizes value, converting value from one form (commodity) to another (money) in the sphere of circulation rather than the sphere of production.

其次，马克思所说的非生产性劳动并非都与租金有关；食利者雇用的非生产性劳动只是马克思更广泛范畴中的一个子集。也许最值得注意的是马克思所说的“商业劳动者”，他们把生产性劳动创造的产品拿到市场上出售。马克思在《资本论》中提到，商业劳动与生产劳动一样，是与资本交换的，但同与租金交换的劳动一样，是非生产性的，因为它不是创造价值，而是实现价值，在流通领域而非生产领域将价值从一种形式（商品）转换为另一种形式（货币）。

Nevertheless, if we remain faithful to Marx’s classification, we must conclude that in the context of contemporary rentier capitalism, many—indeed most—jobs are clearly performed to generate income (i.e., rent) from assets other than means of production, and in Marx’s terms, most jobs are unproductive.

尽管如此，如果我们忠实于马克思的分类，必然会得出这样的结论：在当代食利资本主义的背景下，许多——甚至大多数——工作显然是为了使生产资料以外的资产产生收入（即租金），用马克思的话说，大多数工作是非生产性的。

Recognizing this raises at least two sets of important questions related to Marx’s argument. The first set concerns fundamental issues of economic vitality and viability. If productive labor is needed to create value and thus ensure economic reproduction, then, all else being equal, an expansion of unproductive labor at the relative expense of productive labor would jeopardize the vitality of the economic cycle. Therefore, the coincidence of sustained economic growth, on the one hand, and a substantial expansion of rentier activity and labor applied to rent-generating assets, on the other, might cast doubt on whether the latter can be called unproductive labor. Put bluntly: Are classical Marxist concepts concerning value and the different forms of productive and unproductive labor applicable to rentier capitalism—a capitalism centered on rent rather than as an adjunct to industrialization?

认识到这一点，至少就出现了两组与马克思的论点有关的重要问题。第一组问题涉及经济活力和可行性的基本问题。如果需要生产性劳动来创造价值，从而确保经济再生产，那么在其他条件不变的情况下，以生产性劳动的相对牺牲来换取非生产性劳动的扩张就会危及经济循环的活力。因此，一方面是经济持续增长，另一方面是食利活动和应用于创租资产的劳动的实质性扩张，这种巧合可能会让人怀疑是否能将后者称为非生产性劳动。直截了当地说：与价值以及不同形式的生产价值和非生产性劳动有关的经典马克思主义概念是否适用于食利资本主义——一种以租金为中心而不是作为工业化附属品的资本主义？

If we consider a specific national economy, the apparent paradox that “more or less harmonious economic reproduction” and “intensified rentierism” can coexist is still relatively easy to resolve within a Marxist framework. However, explaining the flourishing of rentier capitalism within Marx’s framework of productive and unproductive labor will pose considerable challenges.

如果我们考虑的是特定国家的经济，那么“或多或少仍是和谐的经济再生产”与“食利主义加剧”能够共存这一明显悖论，在马克思主义框架内仍是相对容易解决的。然而，要在马克思关于生产性劳动和非生产性劳动的框架内解释食利资本主义的蓬勃发展，将面临相当大的挑战。

The second set of problems raised by Marx’s classification of labor exchanged for rent as unproductive labor is more relevant to the current context, because it relates to Marx’s theory of class. Empirically and on the surface, this theory is extremely simple: the bourgeoisie owns the means of production, the working class lacks such ownership, and therefore sells its labor power to the capitalist in exchange for wages. However, what makes Marx’s theory groundbreaking and powerful—both politically and theoretically—is that it links the position of the working class to exploitation. Under the capitalist system, to be a worker means to be exploited.

马克思把与租金交换的劳动力归类为非生产性劳动力所引发的第二组问题则更与当下的背景相关，因为它与马克思的阶级理论有关。从经验上和表面上看，这一理论极其简单：资产阶级拥有生产资料，工人阶级缺乏这种所有权，于是他将自己的劳动力出卖给资本家以换取工资。但是，马克思的理论之所以具有开创性和力量——无论是在政治上还是在理论上——是因为它将工人阶级的地位与剥削联系在一起。在资本主义制度下，成为工人就意味着被剥削。

It is at this point that Marx’s understanding of productive labor takes on significance and creates a meaningful distinction from that of Adam Smith. As Marx noted, Smith regarded productive labor—the creation of value—as something noble. Yet Marx despised Smith’s “tenderness and fantasies about productive workers.” Marx insisted that being a productive worker is not a privilege but rather a misfortune. For capitalism exploits productive workers precisely by appropriating surplus labor and surplus value. “The productive worker is quite specifically the worker who not only reproduces for the capitalist the full value of the means of subsistence contained in his wage, but also reproduces this value ‘together with a profit’ for him.” If Marx’s theory of class is a theory of exploitation, then the productive worker is the concrete subject of this theory.

正是在这一点上，马克思对生产性劳动的理解具有了重要意义，并与亚当·斯密（Adam Smith）的理解产生了有意义的区分。正如马克思所说，斯密认为生产性劳动——创造价值——是崇高的东西。然而，马克思蔑视斯密“对生产性劳动者的温柔和幻想”。马克思坚持认为，成为生产劳动者不仅不是特权，反而是一种不幸。因为资本主义正是通过占有剩余劳动和剩余价值来剥削生产劳动者。“生产劳动者十分明确是指这样的劳动者，他不仅把包含在工资中的生活资料的全部价值为资本家再生产出来，而且把这个价值‘连同利润一起’为资本家再生产出来。”如果马克思的阶级理论是一种剥削理论，那么生产劳动者就是这种理论的具体主体。

So what, then, is the unproductive worker? If a worker does not produce value and surplus value, does this mean that this worker is not exploited (and does not belong to the working class)? Considerable scholarly ink has been spilled over this question. As Ian Gough pointed out half a century ago, among those who continue to ground the concept of class in Marx’s value analysis, there are two main opposing positions. One position holds that unproductive workers are not only not exploited, but their interests are also more aligned with those of the capitalist exploiters. One can cite Marx himself here, who wrote sarcastically: “The workers are also consoled by the fact that, because the net product increases, more fields of activity are opened up for unproductive labor, fields that are maintained by the workers’ product and whose interests in exploiting the workers are more or less identical with those of the class directly engaged in exploitation.”

那么，非生产性的工人又是什么呢？如果一个工人不生产价值和剩余价值，是否就意味着这个工人不受剥削（也不属于工人阶级）？围绕这个问题，学术界已经花费了相当多的笔墨。正如伊恩·高夫（Ian Gough）在半个世纪前指出的那样，在那些继续将阶级概念植根于马克思的价值分析的人当中，存在着两种主要的对立立场。一种立场认为，非生产性工人不仅没有受到剥削，而且他们的利益也与资本主义剥削者更加一致。这里可以引用马克思本人的观点，马克思曾嘲讽地写道：“同样使工人们聊以自慰的是，由于纯产品增加，为非生产劳动开辟了更多的活动领域，这些领域要靠工人的产品来维持，并且它们在剥削工人方面的利益和直接从事剥削的阶级在这方面的利益或多或少一致起来了。”

The opposing position rejects the narrow equation of the working class with productive workers. We note that this narrow equation contradicts objective reality, namely, that under capitalism, among various types of workers (“productive” or otherwise), a large number live in harsh conditions, earning wages to survive. The commercial laborers working in retail, mentioned above, are an example supporting this argument. As Gough noted, advocates of this position point out (in Gough’s words) “the large number of lower-paid commercial wage workers” can also find theoretical support in Marx.

相反的立场则反对狭隘地将工人阶级与生产工人等同起来。我们注意到，这种狭隘的等同与客观现实相悖，即在资本主义制度下，在各类（“生产性的”或其他性质的）工人中，有大量工人生活在恶劣的条件下，以工资糊口。上文提到的在零售业工作的商业劳工就是支持这一论点的一个例子。正如高夫所指出的，这一立场的倡导者指出（用高夫的话说）“大量工资较低的商业工资劳动者”也可以在马克思那里找到理论支撑。

Marx’s theory of class does not specifically discuss the situation of workers serving rentier capitalists, whose labor generates rents for enterprise assets. But similar questions and comparable potential positions may be worth discussing. One might argue—perhaps considering the earlier examples of individuals who create assets, protect them from competition, or “perform” their value—that these workers differ from the working class, and their interests even align with what Marx called “the interests of the class directly engaged in exploitation.” Alternatively, one could argue that, like commercial laborers, such workers in many cases appear to be no less exploited than “productive” laborers.

马克思的阶级理论没有专门讨论过食利资本家的工人的情况，他们的劳动使企业资产产生租金。但类似的问题和可供比较的潜在立场也许可供讨论。有人可能会说——也许是考虑到我们前面提到的创造资产、保护资产不受竞争影响或“表现”其价值的个人的例子——这些工人不同于工人阶级，他们的利益甚至与马克思所说的“直接剥削的阶级的利益”相一致。或者，我们也可以认为，这类工人与商业劳工一样，在许多情况下受到的剥削似乎并不亚于“生产性”劳工。

However, there is a problem here. As Gough pointed out, if those who oppose strictly equating the working class with productive labor can find support in Marx for the position of commercial wage workers, then when considering workers serving rentier capitalists, their position clearly does not hold. As Gough explained, Marx’s view that commercial laborers are exploited (despite their unproductive status) is more “authoritative.” Gough illustrated this:

然而，这里有一个问题。正如高夫所指出的那样，如果说反对将工人阶级与生产性劳动严格等同的人可以在马克思那里找到对商业雇佣工人立场的支持，那么当考虑为食利资本家服务的工人时，他们的立场就明显不成立了。正如高夫所解释的，马克思认为商业劳工是被剥削者（尽管他们的地位是非生产性的）这一观点更具“权威性”。高夫对此进行了说明：

This labor is purchased with the merchant’s variable capital, not with money spent as revenue; therefore, the purpose of purchasing this labor is not to provide personal services, but to valorize the capital advanced on it… Whatever [the commercial worker’s] wage may be, as a wage laborer, part of his time is unpaid… Although this unpaid labor of these shop assistants does not create surplus value, it enables [the merchant capitalist] to appropriate surplus value.

这种劳动是用商人的可变资本，而不是用作为收入来花费的货币购买的；因此，购买这种劳动的目的并不是为了替私人服务，而是为了使预付在这上面的资本自行增殖……无论[商业工人的]工资是多少，作为雇佣劳动者，他的部分时间是白干的……这些店员的无偿劳动虽然不创造剩余价值，但却使[商人资本家]能够占有剩余价值。

In short, because commercial wage workers, like productive workers, exchange their labor for capital, they too perform surplus labor.

简言之，由于商业雇佣劳动者与生产工人一样，其劳动都是与资本交换的，因此他们也同样在从事剩余劳动。

In contrast, most of the labor that workers provide for rentier capitalists is exchanged not for capital, but for income in the form of rent. For this type of work, there is no clear textual evidence that Marx considered the workers in question to be potentially exploited, and thus their interests might be more aligned with those of productive workers than with those of the exploiting class. Given the now-existing reality of rentier capitalism—where a large number of employees sweat at low wages to create assets that generate rents—we can conclude that such workers pose a challenge to Marx’s theory of class, at least insofar as this theory relies on Marx’s writings on productive and unproductive labor. In any case, this challenge is greater than that posed by the commercial workers Gough discussed.

与此相反，工人为食利资本家提供的大部分劳动并不是与资本交换的，而是以租金的形式与收入交换的。就这类工作而言，没有明显的文本显示,马克思认为有关工人可能被视为被剥削者，从而他们的利益可能更多地与生产工人的利益而不是剥削阶级的利益一致。鉴于现在实际存在的食利资本主义现实，即一大批雇员以低工资汗流浃背地创造能够产生租金的资产，我们可以得出结论：这类工人对马克思的阶级理论构成了挑战，至少在这种理论依赖于马克思关于生产性劳动和非生产性劳动的著作的范围内是如此。无论如何，这种挑战比高夫所称的商业工人的挑战更大。

A more general question is whether, and to what extent, Marx’s theory of capitalism, especially his theory of capitalist class, can withstand the ongoing structural changes in capitalist political economy. This is a long-standing and recurring question. For example, it was raised during the shift from manufacturing to services. It now needs to be raised anew regarding the expansion of rent and rentierism.

一个更一般的问题是，马克思的资本主义理论，尤其是资本主义阶级理论，能否以及在多大程度上能够承受资本主义政治经济不断发生的结构性变化的影响。这个问题是一个长期存在且反复出现的问题。例如，在从制造业向服务业转变的过程中，就有人提出过这个问题。现在需要就租金和食利主义的扩张重新提出这个问题。

IV. Conclusion

四、结语

The purpose of this article is to depict certain apparent trends in rent generation and social stratification consequences, and to raise some challenges these developments may pose for Marxist analysis, if indeed these developments are substantive developments accurately described. Clearly, much work remains to be done, both empirically and theoretically, to paint a more complete and reliable picture of enterprise rentierism and the accompanying socio-economic inequality in reality, and to further explore and interpret theoretically the world of rentier capitalism and the world of Marxist analysis.

本文的目的是描绘租金产生和社会分层后果中的某些明显趋势，并提出这些发展可能对马克思主义分析带来的一些挑战，如果这些发展确为得到准确描述的实质性发展的话。显然，无论是在实证方面还是在理论方面，都还要进行大量的工作，以便在现实中描绘出企业食利主义和随之而来的社会经济不平等的更完整、更可靠的图景，并进一步在理论上探索和阐释食利资本主义的世界以及马克思主义分析的世界。

Much of what is important in contemporary capitalism is clearly about who owns what and who does what. Therefore, an understanding of class must pay more attention to where different types of assets are located, who owns them, and how these assets are mobilized to generate income for different groups. It is insufficient to limit our understanding to assets owned by individuals and households, rather than assets owned by corporations (as in the model of Adkins, Cooper, and Konings). But perhaps an understanding of class is also not one in which what truly matters is that corporate-owned assets—which have direct material significance for value creation and, in turn, relate to the relationship between the exploited and the exploiter, the creator and the appropriator of surplus value—are considered means of production.

当今资本主义的许多重要内容显然都是关于谁拥有什么以及谁在做什么，因此，对阶级的理解必须更多地关注不同类型的资产在哪里、由谁拥有，以及这些资产是如何被调动起来为不同群体创造收入的。将我们的理解仅限于个人和家庭拥有的资产，而不是公司拥有的资产（如阿德金斯、库珀和科宁斯的模式中的情况）是不够的。但是，对阶级的理解或许也不是这样，在对阶级的理解中，真正重要的是公司拥有的资产——对价值创造具有直接的物质意义，反过来也关系到被剥削者与剥削者、剩余价值创造者与占有者之间的关系——被认为是生产资料。

For example, in Marx’s view, the working class includes those individuals who do not own the means of production, exchanging their labor power with productive capital for wages. Today, however, one might more meaningfully conceptualize this class from the following two aspects: Do they own housing or other valuable assets? What is the labor relationship between them and the rent-generating assets owned by their employers (such as land, natural resource reserves, or intellectual property)? Is it a “sweating” relationship or a relationship of creation or protection? It can be said that, as capital deforms, mutates, and becomes increasingly complex in form, the concepts used to understand the social life condensed by capital must also change accordingly.

例如，在马克思看来，工人阶级包括那些不拥有生产资料的个人，他们用劳动力与生产资本进行交换以获得工资。而今天，人们可能会更有意义地从以下两个方面对这一阶级进行概念化：他们是否拥有住房或其他有价值的资产？他们与雇主拥有的、产生租金的资产（如土地或自然资源储备或知识产权）之间有何劳动关系？是“流汗”的关系还是创造或保护的关系？可以说，随着资本的变形、变异以及形式的日益复杂化，用来理解资本所凝结的社会生活的概念也必须随之变化。

(Author’s bio: Brett Christophers, Department of Social and Economic Geography, Uppsala University, Sweden; Translator: Ye Jiabin, Institute of Marxist Philosophy and Chinese Modernization & Department of Philosophy, Sun Yat-sen University; Shen Fang, Department of Philosophy, Sun Yat-sen University)

（作者简介：布雷特·克里斯托弗斯（Brett Christophers），瑞典乌普塞拉大学社会与经济地理学系；译者：叶甲斌，中山大学马克思主义哲学与中国现代化研究所暨哲学系；沈放，中山大学哲学系）

Online editor: Tongxin

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