Among Marxian economic geographers in Japan, the theory of differential rent is considered to be one of the most important theoretical bases for theorizing about spatial movements of economy. In this paper the auther tried to examine some of these examples in their logics and controversial points, in order to make the limit and significances of such approach clear.
The differential rent is a surplus profit against the most inferior condition of production, which arises through the competition among capitalists and between capitalists and lead owners, at the capitalists who utilize fully employed superior conditions of production which are unable to reproduce.
The results obtained through our consideration based on above-mentioned points of view are as follows:
1. A location theory like A. Weber, which determines where a plant should be located, cannot be reinterpreted into Marxian theory by adopting the theory of differential rent, because the location theory of this kind and the theory of differential rent have two entirely different objects, the latter coming after the former.
2. It can be explained by shifting the general price of production that a location is always found at a superior land prior to the inferior, if the object comes to the stage where the theory of differential rent can be employed, which comes after the stage mentioned in 1..
3. The direct employment of the so-called “von Thünen's model” has little meaning, since the model is not consistent with the logics of the theory of differential rent. The spatial distribution of various sectors is rather determined by the steepness of their land rent gradients, as Brinkmann has pointed out.
