alt Hacker News"Rent seeking" has nothing to do with landlords and tenants. It's about buying legislation that forces people to give you money for nothing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent-seeking
Tenants who rent property get something tangible in exchange for their cash - exclusive use of the property.
Just because the word "rent" is common to both, doesn't mean they are connected in any way.
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> "Rent seeking" has nothing to do with landlords and tenants
They're orthogonal. In a competitive market, landlords earn no economic rent. In a market with supply restrictions, however, landlords will earn a return "in excess of the costs needed to bring that factor into production" [1].
> exclusive use of the property.
This is almost never true. Leases come with a million stipulations, and they get to decide what you can and cannot do. It’s exclusive in the sense that the landlord can’t force other tenants on the place you’re renting.
gp used "rent seeking" correctly.
The concept of "landlords do nothing while collecting passive income, therefore not creating any value but instead are just exploiting that they own the land" would be correctly described as "rent-seeking behavior".