GROUND RENT AND'SOCIAUSM 27 is whether the payment by the State to these peasants could be regarded as rent? But old age pension in lieu of the means of earning livelihood cannot be, by any definition, regarded as rent of any type. From what has been presented above one could conclude that a very important feature of the capitalist system which Marx investigated and which for a long time was regarded as Inot admissible in socialist economic practice has been found to be of tremendous significance in this society. As is well known, this is not only true of Marxian theory of ground rent but also quite a number of other theories that have been successfully employed in socialist practice with suitable theoretical and practical modifications. In the USSR and East European countries, as has been indicated, differential rent I is eliminated by various methods aimed at creating equal khozraschet conditions and redistribution of surplus income. This rent income is received by the State because only it has the monopoly over landownership. This characteristic of State action under socialism does not make a socialist State a perpetuator of 'State landlordism*. This point needs emphasis because for reasons best known to them, some of the scholars on socialist economies in the West; especially concerned with the USSR and East European countries have branded the system as 'State capitalism' because they have invented or identified some definite similarities with capitalist economies. They have chosen their terms in such a way that, in the present historical context, no system could be designated as socialist. The inclusion of 'State landlordism' in the economic, or to be precise, ideological vocabulary of such scholars is not an impossibility. NOTES AND REFERENCES 1. Klaus Ahrends, Zur Gesichte der sozialistischen Differentialrenten Theorie Beitrage aus Forschung und Lehre, 1978/3, p.42. 2. Ibid. 3. Ibid., p.43. 4. S. Strunilin, '0 Differential not zemel' not rente Vusloviyakh Sotsializma', Voprosi Ekonomiki, 1960/7, p.84. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., pp. 84-85. 7. I. Markov, 'Differential "Naya Rent Hi Differential" Nyidkhod v Kholkozakh?', Voprosi Ekonomiki, 1960/11, p.126. 8. Ibid., p.127. 9. V. Nemchinov, 'Stoimost' i tsena pri Sotsilizme', Voprosi Ekonomiki, 1960/12, p.92. 10. Ibid. 11. I. Balanchivadze, *K Voprosu o Differential 'not rente v SSSR', Voprosi Ekonomiki, 1961/8, pp.104-105. 12. Ahrends, op. dt., p.48. 13. H. Luft, 'Akkumulation, Geldeinkunfte und Differentialrente in den LPG', Einheit, 1966/1, p.67, dted by Ahrends, op. dt. 14. H. Anders, 'Wertgesetz und Agrarpreisbildung in der Socialistisxhen Landwirtschaft', WW, 1965/1, p.31 and 'Zur Berucksichtigung des Wirkens Differentialrente bei der Gewaltung des Systems Okonoxnischer Hebel', Einheit, 1964/8, dted by Ahrends, op. dt. 15. Ahrends, op. dt., p.49.