Note 749 — Chapter II · : THE APOGEE AND DECLINE OF THE CLASSICAL SCHOOL. JOHN STUART MILL

This confusion between rent and the income of inherited wealth does little honour to Senior, for the two facts belong to entirely different categories. Rent is a purely economic phenomenon, resulting from the necessary conditions of exchange. It owes nothing to social organisation, not even to the institution of private property. Inheritance, on the other hand, is a purely juridical phenomenon, the product of civil law. Even if inheritance were abolished it would make no difference to the existence and growth of rent, whether obtained from the soil or from some other source; whereas under the hypothetical régime of perfectly free competition, although rent would no longer be known, inheritance, together with all its privileges, might still continue to exist. Senior evidently understands by the term “rent” any kind of income that is not obtained by personal effort. But this is clearly a perversion of the original meaning.