The new articulation of wages, rent and profit in cognitive capitalism

Une version beaucoup plus complète et approfondie de cet article a été publiée en français : Vercellone C. (2007), « La nouvelle articulation rente, salaire et profit dans le capitalisme cognitif », in European Journal of Economic and Social Systems, Volume 20 – n° 1/2007, pp.45-64.In the transition toward a cognitive capitalism, the transformations of the social organisation of production are strictly connected to those of income distribution. This evolution is deeply characterised by the re-emerging of the rent under different forms. The aim of this article is to provide a marxist interpretation of these mutations and their social and economic implications. The analysis is organised in two sections. In the first section we are going to examine the definitions of the categories of wages, rent and profit, and claim that the lines separating rent from profit are flexible and mobile both theoretically and historically. To illustrate this point we rely on suggestions found in Marx's Capital volume III, where he drafts a theory of the becoming-rent of capital that provides new insights into the related theory of the general intellect. In the second section, we will provide a synthetic framework for the interpretation of transformations of the labour-capital relation that led simultaneously to an increase in the power of rent and the collapse of a distinction between rent and profit in the transition from industrial to cognitive capitalism