How rents on concessions developed in Venezuela

The introduction and first chapter of El petroleo en el pensamiento economico venezolano by Asdrubal Baptista and Bernard Mommer (Ediciones IESA 1997) give a good historical background to how oil rents began in Venezuela.  In the 1930s, there were two very different economies developing in the country: one linked to the traditional agricultural activities of the region and the other was found in the foreign dominated petroleum industry.  The question that the State needed to address was how to handle the oil concessions.

Europe's social revolution was defined by the historical pressure to reduce or eliminate the profits landowners received from their monopoly on land ownership and it's development.