The rent of land is established as a result of the struggle between tenant and landlord. We find that the hostile antagonism of interests, the struggle, the war is recognized throughout political economy as the basis of social organization.
Rent cannot be paid on all commodities. This competition has the further consequence that a large part of landed property falls into the hands of the capitalists and that capitalists thus become simultaneously landowners.
The final consequence is thus the abolition of the distinction between capitalist and landowner, so that there remain altogether only two classes of the population – the working class and the class of capitalists.
Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations.
Capitalist production, however, develops technology only by sapping the original sources of all wealth — the soil and the worker.