1. The leasing of fields, meadows, and woods played a great part in the history of economic ideas.
The political economy of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries admitted, in fact, that the distribution of income was carried out between three social classes, the landowners, the capitalists, and the workers. In reality, incomes proper turn out to be of two kinds: those from placements and those from labor. Nevertheless, classical political economy considers that the distribution of income constitutes the main part of what economic science must succeed in elucidating (Ricardo's preface to his Principles).
2. Many commercial enterprises sell and manage rentals.
The generic product that these enterprises market is the composite commodity constituted by the rental service.
3. The other lessors are individuals, private associations, and public entities.
A lessor who does not make his trade the object of a legally constituted enterprise has nevertheless established a de facto enterprise.
4. Letting a property and keeping it let entail costs.
Every letting must be managed, and all management has a cost. Although a rented plot of land may entail only tax charges for several generations, most real estate requires periodic major maintenance. Where applicable, finding a new tenant also has a cost.
5. For the lessor, rent is a revenue and not an income.
The lessor manages his business well only by seeing in the rent he receives a revenue item from which charges are to be deducted.
6. The earnings of the lessor are placement income.
It is once all expenses have been deducted from revenue that, as in any enterprise's income statement, a margin appears, which is earnings when it is positive. Only the distribution of earnings to the owner of the enterprise, or to his co-owners, constitutes placement income.
7. Placement income from renting out takes part in the distribution of total income.
Further on, Chapter 8 theorizes the distribution of total income. Let us consider here only one of the most obvious aspects of this problem. If total placement income increases durably faster than total income, then, but only then, does the share of total labor income fall in total income. If total placement income increases durably more slowly than total income, then, but only then, does the share of total labor income increase in total income. Moreover, in the latter case, the rate of increase in total labor income is greater than the rate of increase in total income.