The Rent of Italy
Monday, June 16th, 2008
A grasp of economic rent is vital to understanding geoism and the path to social justice and environmental sanity.
Short definitions are helpful but limited – the return to privilege; a free ride at society’s expense; unearned increment; excess profits that monopolists reap in the absence of competition; income derived from assets that cannot be freely produced by private economic agents; income (real or imputed) that cannot be justified as an incentive for private economic agents; or even the natural source of revenue for the community.
Sydney’s David Smiley continues his series wherein he fleshes out the meaning of rent through a string of vivid historical examples.
David Smiley
writes:
Most history books attempt to explain progress, poverty and conflict in terms of charismatic actors and political events, seldom in terms of fundamental causes. It is therefore refreshing to find, in A Traveller’s History of Italy (Lintner, V. 1989, Gloucestershire, Windrush Press), explanations in terms of land ownership.
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