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TTPrograms | 4 years ago

Renting housing is generally not rent-seeking - that's exactly my point. If a property goes up for sale one can (1) choose to invest capital to purchase it, and (2) offer a contract for housing at a managed property to people who can't necessarily afford the capital investment of property purchase. Providing a service (housing access and property upkeep) in exchange for money is literally not economic rent-seeking (gaining wealth without any reciprocal contribution of productivity).

It's only for the particular school of Georgism (which holds that all undeveloped land value should be rightfully owned by citizens equally) from which the phrase originates that the transaction of "housing rent" is viewed as unjust enrichment (in that the majority of the cost is assumed to merely cover rights to the undeveloped land). Even through this economic lens it's difficult to make the "rent" definitions align, as the notion that a property might "go up for sale" is already a violation of the principle - the landlord is still providing a service with investment capital, they're just forced to work within the confines of the system for private land ownership.

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