Originally posted by Lurchy
I had an econ prof who defined rent seekers as anyone who was not an (economic) entrepreneur, so essentially, if you weren't a producer of something, you were a rent seeker. In which case, it is unfair to generalize all rent seekers together, such as the author of Larry's illustration did.
did they differentiate between rentiers and rent-seekers?
most definitions are going to be variations on a theme, and ultimately all are twists on whatever theory of value one is using. like if you follow a labor theory of value, well then you're going to necessarily end up with a different take on rents than you would if you're using a marginalist theory of value. ultimately, the question is whether rents are intrinsic or subjective.
(and it's interesting that classical economics started with the answer of 'intrinsic', which is why marx can be read as an extension of ricardo when it comes to economic value. and then, following the paradox of value, we have the menger's marginalist revolution which twisted classical economics off its axis and gave rise to the psychological schools and even austrian economics. cram those together (roughly speaking) and we end up with the samuelson synthesis where things are back to intrinsic, except bracketed out and so limited in scope that almost all the math presumes subjectivity and voila, a mainstream economics where everyone has been confused about the ultimate nature of value ever since. basically, the question got so thoroughly punted down the road because economics is not a deductive discipline any longer (save for the austrians/etc) and instead is a sprawling empirical/inductive mess where the science has to be sloppy because the object of study is evolving at the speed of the internet.)
tldr -- if you're at a cocktail party and want to impress (or frustrate) an econ grad student, just start talking about rents.
