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2022: Creating a Lexicon of Future
R is for Rentier Capitalism
Rentier capitalism is a term currently used to describe the belief in economic practices of monopolization of access to any kind of property (physical, financial, intellectual, etc.) and gaining significant amounts of profit without contribution to society.
The origins of the term are unclear; it is compatible with Marxist conceptions of surplus value extraction, yet the combination of words “rentier capitalism” were never used by Karl Marx himself.
Modern economists agree that the power dynamics of the rentier-tenet relationship are oppressive, but capitalist theories such as the natural “euthanasia of the rentier” famously put forth by John Maynard Keynes have been abandoned in light of the increase in rent-seeking behavior seen over the past century.
Current usage of the term ‘rentier capitalism’ describes the gaining of ‘rentier’ income from ownership or control of assets that generate economic rents rather than from capital or labour used for production in a free competitive market.
The term rentier state is mainly used not in its original meaning, as an imperialistic state thriving on labor of other countries and colonies, but as a state which derives all or a substantial portion of its national revenues from the rent of indigenous resources to external clients.~ Wikipedia
