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Comment on No one really understands our struggle

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.

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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.

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- 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.
  
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  - SCB@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Ah yes the famous houses of apartment blocks that the mean old renters built and then… owned.
    
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    archomrade@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    Rent, it is to be observed, therefore, enters into the composition of the price of commodities in a different way from wages and profit. High or low wages and profit, are the causes of high or low price; high or low rent is the effect of it. It is because high or low wages and profit must be paid, in order to bring a particular commodity to market, that its price is high or low. But it is because its price is high or low; a great deal more, or very little more, or no more, than what is sufficient to pay those wages and profit, that it affords a high rent, or a low rent, or no rent at all.
    
    I’m not sure what you’re going on about, but my point is exactly Adam Smith’s. In other commodities (according to smith), high or low wages+profit cause a high or low commodity price, because they are what is required to bring a commodity to market, but with rent it is exactly the opposite. The rent that is extracted is measured by how much higher it is than what it actually takes to produce and maintain it. In Adam Smith’s view (and in mine), the rent extracted from a dwelling bears no relationship with the cost of producing and maintaining it. It is exactly defined by how much more they extract than what it takes to maintain it.
    
    Landlords are leaches even to the godfather of western capitalism.
    
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  - 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.
    
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    archomrade@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    What if you don’t want to own? I don’t.
    
    There are other, communally-owned options that would fit that exact function. Housing co-ops are a perfect example and avoid the tempting coercive relationships with private landlords. You can live an apartment that isn’t owned by a landlord. Your inability to see beyond your own direct experience isn’t my responsibility, except as to slap you in the face with it when you decide you don’t want to think about it.
    
    Rent and prices are directly correlated to the same things.
    
    If you’re pissed off about housing costs that’s another story.
    
    Huh, weird, that sounds like two, contradicting statements to me. Yup, rent and market price are absolutely tied together. You buy a house to rent out? That’s one less available to purchase to live in from the housing stock. You buy a bunch of land and build apartments on it? Sure, you just created a bunch of homes to live in! Congratulations. Too bad they aren’t for sale, and now that person owns all the stock in that location, allowing them to lord over those in need of a home.
    
    you just sound like an uneducated crazy person when you go around ranting like a lunatic about rent extraction
    
    Funny, because from my perspective you’re the one in need of an education, otherwise I wouldn’t be ranting about something you don’t understand. If you’re gonna simp for capitalism, at least fuckin’ read something written by the guy who first described it.
    
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- 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…
  
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  - SCB@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I’m literally quoting Adam Smith
    
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    Aceticon@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Which has absolutelly nothing at all to do with the definition of rent-seeking including landlords, hence it’s simply whataboutism.
    
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- CileTheSane@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  Ie. not contributing any benefit (preventing access to a natural resource
  
  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.
  
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  - SCB@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    People who rent are not generally people who can purchase houses
    
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    CileTheSane@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Is the landlord profiting of the rent? Then the person who is paying the rent could afford the costs of the house if they didn’t have to pay rent.
    
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