SOCIAL SCIENTIST attacks, under the title 'Capitalism in Agriculture'4 . Lenin himself discussed Marx's theory of ground rent on a number of occasions, most extensively perhaps in the course of the debates in Russia on the agrarian programme of the social democrats, regarding whether land should be redistributed or nationalised after the revolution.5 The outstandingly original feature of Marx's theory of Ground Rent, was the clear analytical distinction he drew between Absolute Ground Rent on the one hand, and Differential Rent on the other. The idea of Absolute Ground Rent had been originated by Adam Smith in his Wealth of Nations and indeed Smith referred to it as 'rent' in general - the term 'Absolute Ground Rent' was used later by Marx to describe the concept Smith had in mind, and to distinguish it from Ricardo's concept of rent which was quite different. By 'rent' Adam Smith always understood that rent which arose because private property not only existed, but was monopolised in a few hands . If private property existed but was equally dispersed among large numbers of small producer households - each with enough land to produce for its own reproduction - Absolute Rent would not exist. Similarly it could not exist if all land was nationalised. The condition for Absolute Rent to exist is there is private property in land, and that property is monopolised in a few hands whereas large numbers of land-less or land -poor people have to derive their livelihood from land. As Smith puts it,' the Rent of land therefore considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally a monopoly price'. This is obviously a perfectly general concept, not confined to capitalist property alone but would be applicable to pre-capitalist forms of monopoly of property as well. Smith made it clear that Absolute Rent proper, had nothing to do with the landlord's having invested capital on the land or improved it in any way (if he had, this should be called interest and not rent) by pointing out that rent was taken in a parasitic manner by its owners even on land which was not capable ever of any improvement, such as the sea-shore from where people collected useful products like weeds and shells : "As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce".6 Ricardo however criticised Smith for his concept saying it was not valid, because Ricardo himself operated with a completely different concept of 'rent'. By 'rent' Ricardo referred to the extra profit over and above the average profit, which some capitalist producers in agriculture could obtain because they produced at lower-