Comment on No one really understands our struggle
SCB@lemmy.world 1 year agoAn example of rent-seeking in a modern economy is spending money on lobbying for government subsidies in order to be given wealth that has already been created, or to impose regulations on competitors, in order to increase one’s own market share.[15] Another example of rent-seeking is the limiting of access to lucrative occupations, as by medieval guilds or modern state certifications and licensures. According to some libertarian perspectives, taxi licensing is a textbook example of rent-seeking.[16] To the extent that the issuing of licenses constrains overall supply of taxi services (rather than ensuring competence or quality), forbidding competition from other vehicles for hire renders the (otherwise consensual) transaction of taxi service a forced transfer of part of the fee, from customers to taxi business proprietors.
The concept of rent-seeking would also apply to corruption of bureaucrats who solicit and extract “bribe” or “rent” for applying their legal but discretionary authority for awarding legitimate or illegitimate benefits to clients.[17] For example, taxpayers may bribe officials to lessen their tax burden.
One would assume they would list… You know… rent, if it applied
Aceticon@lemmy.world 1 year ago
You seem to have missed the whole part of that article (most of it) about how the expression had its origin in describing the activities of those using land ownership to extract rents.
You know, getting a “rent” for “land”, also known as being a “landlord”.
All that your quote does is confirm the point I made two comments above that “rent-seeker” is group that includes all of “landlord” like “fruit” is group that includes all “apples” - I suppose when you’re willfully blind it’s normal to run around in circles.
SCB@lemmy.world 1 year ago
What you’re missing is they were literally lords, who literally owned land, and extracted rents from shit like charging to harvest kelp on their shoreline, or charging a toll to cross a stream, etc.
E.g. not contributing any benefit (preventing access to a natural resource/mode of travel otherwise possible)
It has nothing to do with providing homes, which is a distinct economic benefit.
archomrade@midwest.social 1 year ago
Modern landlords to not “provide housing”. They extract rent from the use of a house that would otherwise be available to purchase by the renter if not for the landlord holding it for rent extraction. Worse still, since rent seekers compete with homeowners for housing they end up driving up the price, which prices out homeowners and creates the demand for renting to begin with.
Any other “service” a landlord provides would otherwise be levied as those services are provided (like a handyman or contractor being paid for work done to your house). In the case of the landlord, the rent extracted is maximally realized by providing the least amount of service (even none) for the most amount of rent. Rent is completely detached from any actual labor or addition of value.
SCB@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Ah yes the famous houses of apartment blocks that the mean old renters built and then… owned.
solstice@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Misplaced vitriol. What if you don’t want to own? I don’t. How do I rent if nobody can or will rent?
Rent and prices are directly correlated to the same things. Local economy, future outlook, interest rates, the usual stuff.
If you’re pissed off about housing costs that’s another story. If you’re pissed off because a landlord didn’t fix your ax or hot water then that’s another story too. But you just sound like an uneducated crazy person when you go around ranting like a lunatic about rent extraction.
Aceticon@lemmy.world 1 year ago
Now you’re just making shit up and whatabouting in every direction you can think of to see if it sticks…
SCB@lemmy.world 1 year ago
I’m literally quoting Adam Smith
CileTheSane@lemmy.ca 1 year ago
So a company builds a house. Instead of selling to the person who will live in that house, a Landlord purchases it at a higher rate (preventing acess to land + shelter) and then rents it to the person who will live there.
The Landlord in this scenario has provided nothing of economic value, and is restricting access to shelter necessary for survival.
SCB@lemmy.world 1 year ago
People who rent are not generally people who can purchase houses