as well as all other objects which are not produced by labor has no value. This may sound strange in face of the fabulous prices that we know are sometimes paid for land. But these very fabulous prices are proof that the price paid does not represent the value of the land but something else entirely. Marx proves conclusively that rent is not the result of the value of the land, and the price of land is admittedly merely a "capitalization" of the rent. Marx calls attention to the fact, which is also mentioned by Böhm-Bawerk, who, however, fails to draw therefrom the proper consequences, that the price of land is a multiple of the rent by a certain number of years, the number depending on the prevailing rate of interest. In other words, it is not the value of the land that the price nominally paid for it represents, but the price of the rent. The transaction which formally and nominally appears as a sale of land, is in reality merely the discount of the rent. It differs absolutely nothing in character from the purchase of an annuity, which is not an exchange of present values but a mere banking operation. This is well known to real estate operators.
The best proof, however, of the theory that land has no value, is the fact that any amount of land can always be had on the largest portion of our Mother Earth without the necessity of paying for it. The query of Professor Masaryk, supposed to be a refutation of Marx by "the facts,"—"why is virgin soil bought and sold?" is to be answered: The fact is that virgin soil is not bought and sold. It is only after the soil has been husbanded and raped and has given birth to the bastard rent that it becomes the subject of purchase and sale, not before. And this fact ought to give the quietus, once and for all, to the claim that objects not produced by labor may still have value. It is true that it is pretty inconvenient for us to get to a place where land is obtainable without price because of no value, and that as far as we are concerned the argument of the places where land is free seems, therefore, far fetched. But, first of all, it is certainly no fault of the Marxian theory that our capitalistic class
