Is Marx’s absolute rent due to a monopoly price?

Absolute rent, in Marx’s view, has an upper limit represented by the difference between the value and the price of production of agricultural commodities. The actual relevance of this limit was questioned by Bortkiewicz and other scholars because of the difficulties concerning the argument which Marx based it on. The lack of this upper limit prompted a number of scholars to claim that there is no difference between absolute rent and a rent paid by a monopoly price. Referring to the classical/Marxian theory of monopoly price, we shall argue that is still possible—notwithstanding the missing upper limit—to distinguish absolute rent from a rent actually due to a monopoly price. In particular, the difference between the two rests on the removability (in the case of absolute rent) or the persistency (in the case of monopoly rent) of the obstacle to the expansion of agricultural production.