>At 8:15 PM -0400 17/10/05, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>>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.
Capital directly engaged in production, vs. capital separated from production by several degrees.
> The distinction is meaningless, surely you can see that?
Uh, no.
>> 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.
No. Just different, with different material interests. Just to pick one: a rentier is more concerned with keeping inflation down, while an industrial capitalist would prefer (if given a choice) a higher rate of growth. A rentier would prefer a high currency value, and a capitalist a lower one. But since these are intra-family quarrels, the differences are rarely profound.
I wrote a whole book on this, which you can download for free at <http://www.wallstreethebook.com>.
Doug