RENT
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most capable operatives from getting the full
value of their differential advantages ; but
it must not be taken for granted that such
restraints are necessarily without beneficial
results.
The personal rent enjoyed by an employer
is naturally a more substantial quantity than
any personal rent enjoyed by a workman.
A very capable employer will ultimately have
under his control a far greater quantity of
agents in production than the marginal em
ployer. Though the very capable employer
with a small business might immensely magnify
his earnings by enlarging it, the marginal
employer would find that any attempt on his
part to do the same would meet with loss
instead of gain.
Whether regarded broadly or narrowly, the
rent paid for a productive agent does not deter
mine the price of the thing to the creation of
which it is instrumental. In this sentence we
have presented to us one of the most famous
dogmas of economics. Not uncommonly it
has been expressed thus : “ rent does not enter
into price.” In this form, however, it invites
misunderstanding. The rent of farm land
and business premises must come out of the
receipts made up of the prices of things, since