Toward a socially significant theory of rent

This article offers a means of engaging pressing social concerns around land in Africa through reinvigorating scholarly debates on Marxist class analysis, rent theory and extractive industry. The central claim is that coherent analyses of land grabs, oil cities and of sustainability and energy in Africa need to begin from a strong methodological foundation of generative class analysis informed by historically specific theories of rent and landed property. The point of departure for this enquiry is revisiting C.N. Nwoke’s seminal contribution to rent theory and extractive industry 30 years ago, Third World Minerals and Global Pricing: A New Theory.