>There's always dictionary.com, which reports: "A person who lives on
>income from property or investments."
Whereas of course a capitalist lives on income from capital. The distinction is meaningless, surely you can see that?
> Property income originates ultimately in production (where else
>could it come from? financial assets are instruments of
>distribution) but the rentier is performing a different social role
>from the capitalist.
I don't know how to respond to that. It would appear from your earlier remark (to the effect that a capitalist who doesn't work is a rentier) that you distinguish the two according to whether the individual voluntarily chooses to work or performs some useful occupation in society. So a capitalist would be more moral as measured against the Protestant Work Ethic than a rentier.
But this is merely a subjective moral judgement. Class cannot be a value judgement we pass on other people. Relative ethics play no part at all. Just as scabs and the vicious rapists are no less working class for being immoral low-life, so the industrious, socially useful and ethical capitalist is still a capitalist.
Does "rentier" carry some negative emotional connotations in American English? In the same way as "exploit" sounds more negative than "use", though the definition is identical?
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas