Because:

> Rent-seeking is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating public policy or economic conditions without creating new wealth. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking)

Given that renting out property you own doesn't meet this definition it can categorically not be called rent seeking. I'm always shocked that people apply this definition exclusively to property rentals, and not VHS rentals, without seeing the hypocrisy.

Wild. It seems to be a very common misunderstanding too.

Googling it after reading Wikipedia shows that about half the sites out there talking about it are also using it wrongly.

Thanks for explaining!

Massive credit for genuinely changing position in the face of evidence; this is rare and deserves lauding.

I fail to understand how your quote doesn't describe land lords? It is: 1. An act of growing one's own wealth (no other purpose to land lording) 2. It is accomplished by taking advantage of economic conditions (perhaps not "manipulating") 3. Does not create any new wealth.

And a little further down is this: > Rent-seeking implies the extraction of uncompensated value from others without making any contribution to productivity.

Which to me certainly sounds like someone who's only contribution is ownership.

Aren’t you exploiting the economic condition that housing supply is extremely low, and a lot of them vote to keep supply low and prevent new builds? I’m not trying to be facetious but I find it hard to believe that landlords don’t exploit economic conditions.

Most landlords are normies that happen to own one or two extra homes. How could these people meaningfully "exploit economic conditions"?

"Normie" and "happens to own one or two extra homes" seem a bit contradictory to me... And doesn't everyone who invests in something that makes them money exploit economic conditions?

Maybe I’m just unlucky but about a third of the places I rented had landlords who owned at least 5 homes. My realtor owns a dozen. I think owning a couple of extra homes is ok… but at some point I feel like it’s a bit excessive. People struggle to own one, let alone a dozen.

If you have 97 flights landing at airport with 1-3 pax each and 3 full jumbo jets and you survey passengers leaving the airport, the average person surveyed will report that their flight was packed.

That's too broad of a concept to be useful. If you applied it like that then quitting a job would be rent seeking for the same reason

There’s no hypocrisy, of course. VHS tapes are not factors of production, which is the universe of discourse here.

What? Of course they are. They just produce entertainment instead of housing-days.

I think we're at the bottom of the discussion here. You've got your opinions but each time you've been pressed you don't really have a justification that stands up.

I can’t imagine what you mean by “each time you’ve been pressed.” Are you perhaps confusing me with other people you’re arguing with?

But no, VHS tapes are not factors of production. That’s a term with a widely understood definition, and linguistic tricks like “a VHS tape causes an image to be produced on a television” or “viewing an VHS tape produces a sense of enjoyment” are not valid arguments.

You're trying to side-step the point by not understanding it.

A VHS tape is capital in the same way that a machine or house is capital. They are capitalized goods that produce something of value on the other side. You still haven't been able to demonstrate that renting one is morally questionable while the other is fine except by special pleading.

"Rent" has a few specific meanings in economics, but charging a tenant rent isn't necessarily economic rent. The economic rent is more like the difference between your actual monthly rent and some hypothetical idealized market-clearing monthly rent.

That's not the basis for the term.