Start at the beginning.  Here&#x27;s a tin mine.  But it wasn&#x27;t always there; it&#x27;s there because a prospector found a tin deposit, presumably as the result of a large amount of effort.  It&#x27;s there because somebody invested in equipment to make it economically viable to extract the tin.  So viewing that as &quot;rent&quot; seems a bit off.<p>Same thing with farmland.  There&#x27;s a farm there because somebody <i>made</i> a farm there; it wasn&#x27;t always farmland.  Somebody cut down the trees, cleared the brush, broke the ground, and started planting.  It wasn&#x27;t easy.  Later, somebody (a series of somebodies) bought the equipment for the farm to be economically viable in the current environment.<p><i>Real</i> rent is when the king or somebody gives you a monopoly on selling boot blacking (or whatever), so you can charge whatever you decide, and everybody has to pay it or go without boot blacking.  I don&#x27;t see a farm or a mine in the same category.  (I <i>do</i> see a house for rent in an area with zoning restrictions in the category of economic rent, though.)<p>I guess I also didn&#x27;t give a concrete place to draw the line, though...