Timeline for Can a successful economy exist without renting stuff?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
43 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 6, 2019 at 21:36 | comment | added | Vilx- | @John - True, good idea. I wrote something there, go check it out. :) | |
| Oct 6, 2019 at 20:52 | comment | added | John | Let us continue this discussion in chat. | |
| Oct 6, 2019 at 18:58 | comment | added | Vilx- | @John - In contrast, a trade is when you give something to the other person (could be either a physical object - "goods", or your work - "services"), and he gives you money (or whatever) in return. Then you each take what the other has given you and walk away. It's a one time exchange of value. | |
| Oct 6, 2019 at 18:53 | comment | added | Vilx- | @John - I agree that a job is an odd arrangement of rent, but it still matches the criteria. The owner of the company does no work, someone else does it for him and then pays the owner for the privilege of using his property. In this case, the company is the property which is being rented, which can include things like offices, stationery, computer systems, etc. And most importantly - access to other colleagues and the company name, so that you can group together and tackle larger projects than each one individually. | |
| Oct 6, 2019 at 18:50 | comment | added | Vilx- | @John - Rent is when one person gives another person some object that he owns (might not be a physical object), the other person then uses the object, and later gives it back when he's done. In addition the other person pays the first person for the privilege of using their property. In the end, the first person has done no work, has lost no property, but has received income. In the case of the plumber, he didn't use your house and you didn't charge him for that. So that's not rent. | |
| Oct 6, 2019 at 18:14 | comment | added | John | @Vilx- if you stretch the meaning of "rent" that far it becomes meaningless. by that logic You rent your house to the plumber when he comes over to fix a pipe. | |
| Oct 6, 2019 at 17:41 | comment | added | Vilx- | @John - Did ol' Rockafella make and move these these things himself, or was it his employees, operating with tools that belonged to him? Because in the latter case, it wasn't Rockefeller who actually made all that money - it was his employees. They were just forced to give up a large portion of their earnings to the boss, whose tools they were using. He gave his property to his employees, who then did actual work, earned the money, and gave part of their earnings back as a payment for using his property. Which sounds a lot like rent to me. | |
| Oct 6, 2019 at 17:03 | comment | added | John | @Vilx- by making or moving things, like oil and railroads in Rockefeller's case. They were called captains of industry not captains of rental. | |
| Oct 6, 2019 at 14:38 | comment | added | Vilx- | @John - but how did their property earn them money? | |
| Oct 6, 2019 at 13:43 | comment | added | John | Consider people like Rockefeller, they got rich not by renting but by buying and owning everything in their supply chains including competitors. No rental is involved. | |
| Oct 4, 2019 at 19:32 | history | edited | Vilx- | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
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| Oct 3, 2019 at 15:43 | comment | added | Mike Scott | Your premise is wrong. Steve Jobs generated perhaps $20 billion of value per year for Apple, and was compensated appropriately, without renting anything other than his own labour. | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 14:27 | answer | added | AmiralPatate | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 13:29 | answer | added | Scott Hammer | timeline score: 2 | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 13:14 | answer | added | Rachey | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 10:17 | answer | added | j4nd3r53n | timeline score: -2 | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 8:33 | comment | added | Luaan | The main thing you get wrong is that renting is always a profitable venture, and that rich people keep getting richer. Neither is true (though it's a popular socialist propaganda). In reality, rich people get poor, and poor people get rich. The "richest people on Earth" were never a good sample - they're extreme outliers. Many more businesses fail than succeed, and often enough through no real fault of their own. The gap between the rich and the poor changes, but the membership of those "classes" does as well; not to mention the absolute living standards of everyone. | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 7:37 | answer | added | Lawnmower Man | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 7:15 | comment | added | Vilx- | @AlexP - So I wanted to explore the alternative (i.e. explicitly denying this option) and see where that takes me. | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 7:14 | comment | added | Vilx- | @AlexP - It matters to me because it just seems unfair, that the majority of people need to work their asses off just to make ends meet (more or less), while a small group of rich people can keep getting even richer without lifting a finger. The very idea of getting benefits without doing any work sounds to me like the dictionary definition of the word "parasite". I've tried looking at the issue in many different ways, but I just can't get past this part. | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 7:06 | comment | added | Vilx- | @vsz - But consider also that the real estate market would become way different. Without the option to rent for profit, landlords would either start selling their propery (which would drop the prices dramatically) or "rent" for the value of service and repairs (which is a lot cheaper than today's rent which includes a profit for the landlord). Or, well, that's what I think would happen. I'm probably wrong of course. :) | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 6:08 | comment | added | vsz | What happens to people who can't afford to buy new apartments with money they already have (basically over 99.9% of young people) ? They can't rent, can't get a loan to buy a home, so they either stay in their parents house or become homeless. | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 5:10 | answer | added | elPolloLoco | timeline score: 5 | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 4:23 | comment | added | RonJohn | @Vilx- "I'd LOVE to understand where I'm wrong". You're definitely asking the wrong people. WB has some smart people, but you really need to take some classes in economics. Better yet, talk to some small businessmen. | |
| Oct 3, 2019 at 0:46 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Oct 3, 2019 at 0:22 | answer | added | James McLellan | timeline score: 4 | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 22:42 | comment | added | AlexP | I just don't get it why it matters so much to you that the super rich get richer. Yes, they do. No, it does not not last forever. The richest man in Rome in the 1st century BCE was M. Licinius Crassus; there are no Licinii Crassi among us. The richest man in Europe in the 16th century was Jakob Fugger; while several branches of the Fugger family still exist, and they are indeed rich, they are no longer super-rich by any means. Same for the Medicis of Florence. Time is the great leveller. | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 21:51 | comment | added | Vilx- | @puppetsock - Same as for Joe above. | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 21:50 | comment | added | Vilx- | @Joe - I know I've got many things wrong. I'd LOVE to understand where I'm wrong, because frankly, the conflict between how I understand things and what the real world is showing me is driving me crazy. This question was one attempt to catch a glimpse of that (because I know that a more direct question would probably be closed down immediately). So, by all means, I'm listening! Please, prove me wrong! | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 20:30 | answer | added | puppetsock | timeline score: 17 | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 20:08 | comment | added | puppetsock | As well, there are just tons of implied things in your question that are simply wrong. For example, you base it on the labor theory of value. "A single person, no matter how hard working, can only produce only so much value per 24 hours." This statement is false, as is the labor theory. The falseness of this statement is part of why some people get much richer than others. But the worse assumption is that different incomes is a flaw. Or even a problem. It's a feature, a valuable and important feature, and one that quite likely keeps you alive. | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 20:01 | comment | added | puppetsock | You trotted out the standard socialist shibboleths abut "the rich" and "the poor." But you don't have the slightest particle of support for them. For example, renting something is cheaper than buying it, so under many conditions it is a net benefit to the renter. So preventing it would make the renter poorer. | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 19:53 | comment | added | Joe | There are multiple misconceptions about economics that form the basis of your question, which make it hard to give a good answer. The two most glaring ones are that you think "value" is objective (it isn't), and that the beneficiaries of income inequality are static (e.g. "the rich" might get richer over time, but "the rich" is a group whose membership changes frequently). I may expand this into an answer later. | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 19:37 | answer | added | kleer001 | timeline score: 3 | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 18:57 | answer | added | Shadow1024 | timeline score: 19 | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 18:37 | comment | added | Cadence | If you're allowed to charge rent equal to the sum of your purchase price, how does this system prevent you from just selling the property when you run out, and getting a new one? e.g. I spend $1 million on an apartment building, I charge my tenants a total of a million in rent over however many years, I sell it and buy a new one... now I have a million in collectable rent on the new building. | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 18:34 | comment | added | user535733 | The economics term you seem to be grasping for is rent-seeking. However's it's very different from classic retail renting of apartments and cars and other capital goods - rent-seeking is usually a form of exploitation or market abuse that doesn't generate new wealth. Read the Wikipedia page so you can understand the important differences, seems likely to change your question a lot. | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 18:06 | comment | added | Upper_Case | Could you expand somewhat on what you mean by words like better and successful? The arguments that favor less-restricted capitalism aren't about working vs. total failure, but relative efficiencies. What is described here seems like a deflated version of the current capitalist system, or a hybridized system of capitalist market organization and price controls. (For reference: systems like that have existed, including in the U.S., within the last half-century or so). | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 17:53 | answer | added | Bald Bear | timeline score: 10 | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 17:35 | comment | added | arkon | I think you'd get more in-depth responses if you asked this over on economics.stackexchange.com. But my guess is it would have little effect on the status quo. The market model may have somewhat of a different structure to it, but (assuming we're sticking to capitalism) supply and demand would still reign supreme i.e. there would still be a massive disproportion between rich and poor. | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 17:33 | comment | added | Alexander | Well, just try to imagine a world in which rental apartments (or any type of housing) do not exist. | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 17:29 | answer | added | overlord | timeline score: 23 | |
| Oct 2, 2019 at 16:40 | history | asked | Vilx- | CC BY-SA 4.0 |