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Book Review: Rentier capitalism: A book review symposium

Since its publication in November 2020, Brett Christophers’ Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It? has gained remarkable media attention and notice beyond our discipline. Theoretically, Christophers makes the case that geographical political economy has neglected the role played by assets—as distinct from commodities— within a capitalist economy. We are all familiar with land as an asset and land rent as its market valuation. Christophers brings attention to a series of other assets and rents: financial instruments, resources, intellectual property, digital assets (e.g., data and software), contracts, and infrastructure. This argument rather neatly suggests that the recent interest among economic geographers in housing, land grabs, intellectual property, resources, financialization, infrastructure, and platform capitalism can be tied together under this framework. Empirically, Christophers provides a penetrating investigation of rentier capitalism in the UK: he explores who owns the assets, their explosion as a component of the economy, the implications for socio-spatial inequality, and the forces enabling their growth. As a single country case study, it is a precedent for all kinds of geographical analyses of rentiership—an emergent central feature of contemporary global capitalism. Kean Birch, known for pioneering work on intellectual property assets, poses a series of questions inspired by the book. Emily Rosenman, drawing on her expertise in financialization and green investing, explores potential activist responses to the problems of rentier capitalism. Brett Christophers then responds. Eric Sheppard University of California, Los Angeles