Why "Rent is Theft": Against Economic Rents and Monopolies

     The reason why the Libertarian Socialist Caucus (LibSoc Caucus) of the Libertarian Party says "rent is theft", is because this is to say that "keeping economic rents is theft". Rent on housing, and other forms of economic rent, are being extorted from us.

     It's unjust to keep something you didn't earn. That includes wealth which is derived from the profits that you earn off of a monopoly status which you own, which you or your business would not wield without government protection of that status and property, to the exclusion of all others who would claim any such right.

     From profiting off of government protection of something you own, the government absolves you of any and all responsibility to play any part in protecting that property from challenge, and from adverse use, occupancy, and possession (which could lead to better or more efficient use, or use at all in case the relevant property is unused or abandoned).

     Kept wages turned into profits (that is, superprofits) are the excess return from a monopoly on the ownership of labor. Usury (that is, excess interest) is the excess return from a monopoly on the issuance of money, credit, and capital. Rent on land and housing in particular, is the excess return from a monopoly on landed property (and from the resulting oligopoly on the housing which rests upon that land).

     That is why the Libertarian Socialist Caucus of the LP says "rent is theft". Because rent - in each and every one of the word's senses, and in all its fullest meanings - is theft, and extortion. We are coerced into “choosing” rental over ownership – of our cars, our homes, and the land beneath them – because we are legally deprived (in nearly all states) of the opportunity to fully own those things in the first place.

     That we "choose" to rent our residences rather than own homes - and that we "choose" to sell our labor to capitalists instead of own our own means of production - are not merely “semi-voluntary choices”; they are constrained choices which result from the deprivation of the additional choice to fully own. Because large firms hold legal monopolies, against which it is illegal to compete, the deprivation of the opportunity to compete against these firms, without being in violation of the law, is, plain and simple, legalized theft.

     This is theft; in the same way in which our tax money is stolen from us through taxation before we ever get a chance to actually hold it in our hands when we cash our paychecks. Thanks to taxation and the legal deprivation of the opportunity to realistically compete on the market, it is now entirely possible to steal something from somebody, which they never physically possessed in the first place. For the same reason that Right-Libertarians say "taxation is theft", Left-Libertarians now say "rent is theft" (and property is too; that is, if it is protected by the state).

     We can scarcely blame the poor for not being rich and creating jobs, nor for not sharing enough of the tax burden as compared to the rich. Through these many monopolies and oligopolies, the poor are literally legally deprived of the opportunity to become competitors in the market. They don't make enough money to need to be taxed in the first place, but the rich insist that the poor pay more in taxes nonetheless.

     Free exchange, voluntary competition, and voluntary cooperation, cannot be achieved, unless and until all business subsidies, economic rents, and monopolies are abolished, and with them, rent-seeking behaviors.

     You can learn more about these topics by researching “rentier capitalism” and rent-seeking; Karl Marx's term “superprofit”; and the definitions of land, labor, and capital - and, most importantly, the full economic definition of rent - as understood by students of classical economics (in particular, the Marginalists, Physiocrats, Georgists, Mutualists, and Lockeans).

Written on March 25th and 26th, 2019

Published on March 26th, 2019