Editing Corruption (section)

== Rent-seeking ==
[[wikipedia:Rent-seeking|Rent-seeking]] is the act of growing one's existing wealth by manipulating the social or political environment without creating new wealth. This negative-sum effect categorizes rent-seeking as a type of corruption. 

Rent-seeking happens when an actor in an economic system arbitrages the inefficiencies of communication of information (which naturally develop, for instance, with over-regulation) in a marketplace to gain outsized profits for their property, and so prevents a more efficient matching of [[wikipedia:Coincidence_of_wants|coincidences of wants]]. This is a typical effect when monopoly powers emerge.

The term rent-seeking, like corruption is a useful concept in many social sciences. Similar to corruption, this recently-coined term has generated different definitions in different academic disciplines. For our context, we again choose an abstract definition, independent of legality. Rent-seeking is one example of corruption.

The term rent-seeking has an unfortunate natural conflation with the act of renting property. If a renter provides a service that helps the economy, then that is not rent-seeking. Renting is not corruption (nor oppression) in that case. Rent-seeking is akin to a bad slumlord's behavior, not a good landlord's. A good landlord is someone who provides a useful service to meet a demand, and so is not a rent-seeker. A bad slumlord is someone who takes advantage of the inefficiencies of communication of information in a marketplace, and so prevents a more efficient matching of a coincidence of wants—similar to the degeneration we experience with unregulated advertising.