27 June 2013

Rent, profit, and wages

Dorian Taylor offers a nice overview of some very useful vocabulary so I will never again have to explain from scratch what I'm talking about when I allude to “rent-seeking behavior”.

  • A rent is a benefit you receive as an accident of your position.
  • Profit is the return you get for putting capital at risk.
  • Wages are what you earn in exchange for your labour.
Once these were modes of income for people, now they are better understood as components of commercial transactions.

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