Re: Smith: ground rents and land rents

<royls@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:430fc670.40528076@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> On Fri, 26 Aug 2005 06:10:58 GMT, Les Cargill <lNOcargill@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> wrote:
>
>>royls@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, 24 Aug 2005 08:38:22 -0700, "The Trucker" <mikcob@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>><ruetheday@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
>>>>news:1124855431.414887.268040@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>>>>
>>>>>Please note that I intentionally said opportunity costs _AND_ barriers
>>>>>to entry. Without the barriers to entry part, neoclassical economics'
>>>>>attempt to define rent as any return in excess of opportunity cost is
>>>>>bogus, I agree. However, taken together, they provide a reasonable
>>>>>definition of rent - a return in excess of opportunity costs due to
>>>>>barriers to entry.
>>>>
>>>>The problem with the "opportunity costs due to barriers to entry"
>>>>is that the barriers MUST be political force or the definition
>>>>is no good.
>>>
>>> I'm not sure that is invariably so. Consider a case that is currently
>>> getting a certain amount of media attention: a power struggle in a
>>> fundamentalist Mormon sect that practices polygamy. Apparently one
>>> particular high priest of the sect is obtaining substantial economic
>>> benefits from the older, wealthier male members of the church through
>>> the exercise of his power -- based entirely on faith, not political or
>>> any other kind of force -- to assign the nubile young females of the
>>> church community to said wealthy older males as "celestial wives"
>>> (i.e., effectively, concubines). ISTM that such benefits are economic
>>> rents.
>>
>>In that case, the distinction between faith and politics might
>>disappear.
>
> Non sequitur.
>
>>This looks engineered to defeat legal proscriptions
>>against polygamy. That's politics.
>
> Polygamy is not the issue. The same sort of thing has gone on in
> monogamous groups where somebody exercises authority (not political
> power) over others' marital options. It's controling others' access
> to what would otherwise be accessible that yields the rent.
>
> -- Roy L

It has to do with ones definition of "political power" and force.
I see all forms of force as political power. An "authority" is
a political force (unless we are speaking of someone who
actually _KNOWS_ what he is talking about -- a different
meaning of authority).

--
"I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers
of society but the people themselves; and
if we think them not enlightened enough to
exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from
them, but to inform their discretion by
education." - Thomas Jefferson
http://GreaterVoice.org



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