2018-10-23 at 1:27 AM UTC
In economics, RSBs are behaviours that aim to increase someone's share of the economic pie without actually increasing the size of the pie, i.e. Make money while not generating any economic value.
The classic example is of a feudal lord who takes a piece of land with a river on it, then runs a chain across the river and charges a tax to boats going down the river. It adds no value and simply makes everything else in the market shift to accommodate it.
So for example if the merchants using the ships have to pay the tax, they will either have to absorb the new cost or pass it on to the consumer. Most likely, the consumers will either absorb the cost or it will have to be absorbed into finite (not always possible) economies of scale, like by shipping more merchandise in each shipment, but that might create other corresponding ineconomies of scale, for example if the demand simply does not justify more merchandise per shipment, as with perishable goods. All demand etc increases would otherwise just be handled with economic activity, there is no reason for it to exist.
I witnessed something like this recently, but in the social domain. People earn "social points" for free by doing something that only stresses the system. I was eating lunch with some friends and their friends, every time someone would pass something, this girl near the middle would literally just touch the tray being passed, as if she was helping, but she bore 0% of the load and facilitated the transportation 0%, in fact she hindered it by insisting on "lending a hand", because the next person could grab it just fine. Nobody seemed to notice or call her on it, but this bitch was just getting brownie points and thank yous from the next guy for nothing.
2018-10-23 at 1:29 AM UTC
RSBs are also things that can make a perfectly fine system fucked in order to extract social rent, for example being a drama queen and turning molehills into mountains.
2018-10-23 at 1:40 AM UTC
Sudo
Black Hole
[my hereto riemannian peach]
Real estate agents literally participate in rent seeking behaviours by taking their fee and sometimes doing a microtransaction with their firm to inflate the price and value. This has inflated the Canadian housing market terribly
In terms of social rent seeking behaviours, people giving someone a lighter as if it's a big deal pisses me off. It also pisses me off when you have a conversation with someone specific to their vocation and feel the need to say "thanks" afterwards for them basically answering your questions and doing their job. "Thanks for not being completely incompetent at your job."
