tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1141932539860553199.post1952674063666385879..comments2024-03-05T10:52:24.691+00:00Comments on Mark Wadsworth: Rent v tax v cost of services - you know it when you see it.Mark Wadsworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07733511175178098449noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1141932539860553199.post-25341987009779232942017-05-29T11:17:17.530+01:002017-05-29T11:17:17.530+01:00N, to your narrow point, yes, you pay builders for...N, to your narrow point, yes, you pay builders for the "convenience" of them building a house for us because if they are better at it than you are, but as long as there is no "premium"/rent element to their income, it is not rent. That's like my example with a power drill.Mark Wadsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07733511175178098449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1141932539860553199.post-79570390952813580332017-05-28T19:43:17.806+01:002017-05-28T19:43:17.806+01:00N, yes agreed to all that. But it's hardly a s...N, yes agreed to all that. But it's hardly a snappy definition, it's an accurate description. The point us, you know it when you see it.Mark Wadsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07733511175178098449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1141932539860553199.post-24793677871618937992017-05-28T18:11:19.948+01:002017-05-28T18:11:19.948+01:00I am interested in your definition in terms of how...I am interested in your definition in terms of how it applies to "actual" rent, i.e. the thing most readily brought to mind by that word: ongoing payment for exclusive usage of a particular place or dwelling.<br /><br />As I would understand it, part of the ongoing payment to live in a house is for the costs associated with providing the dwelling itself (i.e. paying a builder to build and handymen to maintain, but in instalments rather than as a one-off). The other, usually larger, portion is a fee to temporarily assume some of the land rights of the land owner (i.e. exclusive use of that physical space as enforced by land ownership laws).<br /><br />The latter of those is what I suppose I would more naturally use the word "rent" for, but if we use your definition then the former part seems simple to understand: it's payment for the convenience of not having to build one's own house or to maintain it. (But this definition works equally as readily for a homeowner making a single "rent" payment to a builder for building a home as it does for ma tenant making ongoing payments for this service) If we try and fit your definition to the former part though, what is the convenience that is being paid for? I can only think that is the convenience of not having to "take control of a country's land, enforce laws of exclusive use and by some method or other ensure personal profit through use of these laws to the detriment of the rest of society." Someone else has done that already and you are paying for "borrowing" the landowner's rights for a bit. Is that how you would understand it?<br /><br />If I personally were to try and define "rent", it seems to me that the most obvious distinction between the two things mentioned above is that the former (building a building) is payment for the convenience arising from a socially-useful activity (that builder provides some "added value" to the sum total of civilisation) while the latter is payment for the convenience arising from a socially-useless right (the legal right of land title being zero-sum, a merely extractive process shuffling wealth from one to another and adding nothing to the sum total of societal wealth). That would seem, to me, to be pertinent in whatever definition I came up with: I associate "rent" as being applicable to payments that arise solely through legal enforceability rather than actual production of anything of value.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1141932539860553199.post-48094522841922667672017-05-24T21:25:58.798+01:002017-05-24T21:25:58.798+01:00L, yes, but huge price differentials are evidence ...L, yes, but huge price differentials are evidence that there is no competition.<br /><br />Din, you draw the line at common sense. Of course some people earn more than others, if this is not because of govt subsidies, or being a civil servant who can decided his own wages, a monopoly, privileged access to government etc, then it's not rent.Mark Wadsworthhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07733511175178098449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1141932539860553199.post-2986812448630174552017-05-24T16:09:12.868+01:002017-05-24T16:09:12.868+01:00Where do you draw the line - If you take any compo...Where do you draw the line - If you take any component of wages above the minimum wage and call that rent in the pejorative, that is often associated with communist/marxist.Dinerohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14632385731642361211noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1141932539860553199.post-29454077631068065272017-05-24T14:32:09.585+01:002017-05-24T14:32:09.585+01:00Hence 'value pricing'. The 'value pri...Hence 'value pricing'. The 'value price' of the ticket to Paris as opposed to Edinburgh is the premium that can be charged one over the other, all other things being equal. Of course competition will keep 'value pricing' in check; mostly. This is also true of the medical operation. (FWIW I am extremely doubtful that the NHS knows the true cost of anything it does, at all.). Lolahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04586735342675041312noreply@blogger.com