Reconstructing Development Economics: Overcoming Rent forConstructing Capitalism

The purpose of the following article is to show that for itssurvival capitalism requires expanding mass incomes and that thedominant interpretation of growth relying on ever increasing shares ofthe rich in national income is misguided. Capitalism is an achievementinvoluntarily imposed by the poor onto the rich of society. The richgain wealth by a large variety of means, very often not by thediscipline capitalism requires and imposes through competition. Thearticle concentrates on two aspects: the conditions of making expandingmass incomes the basis of capitalist transition in not yet capitalistunderdeveloped economies, and the importance of such a transition formaintaining capitalism at the global level where a globalisation of rentagainst globalisation of profit is the intention of the forces ofcapital. Therefore many other very relevant aspects of the theoreticalmodel can only be shortly outlined.