The return to be expected on the capital, the dividends,
must exceed the customary rate of interest in the country



THE OBJECTS OF WORLD ECONOMY 93

by an amount sufficient to compensate for the entrepreneur
risk assumed, this risk depending, not like the loan risk on
the personal ability to pay of the borrower, but on the
actual chances of the undertaking, Ricardo'^ derives the
difference in the return on capital from the differences in
ground-rents in the various countries. According to his
view the natural limitations of the amount of land gives the
possessor a monopoly which compels the owner of capital
to renounce in favour of the land monopolist an ever-
increasing share of his profits as industrial development
proceeds. The land monopoly can exert its power on the
industrial enterprises, which in advanced coimtries represent
the larger part of production, in two ways : by increase in
the value of sites or through a rise in the cost of the neces-
saries of life for the labour force. But the cost of the site
is for modem large-scale production so small in comparison
with the other capital expenditures that it could seldom be
decisive. The costs of the necessities of life, moreover, are
no longer, and for a long time have not been, determined by
the conditions in any particular country but by those in
the world market, though this world influence may, to be
sure, be more or less effectively warded off by the economic
poUcy of a country. The view of Ricardo is therefore
untenable ; stiU less tenable is that of Sartorius ^ according to
which modern trusts and combinations also form monopolies
which, 'in so far as they use their monopolistic power to
put up prices, likewise become reducers of the general
profits, for which competition is carried on, as much as are
the land monopolists.' In the first place, combinations and
trusts are not monopolies, because they do not exclude com-
petition. Least of all, in view of the high mobility of capital,
are they in a position to lay a special tribute upon that of
any particular country.
