In the nineteenth century, David Ricardo stated that ‘to determine the laws that regulate income distribution is the principal problem in Political Economy’. In this respect, we believe that the link between Classical economists’ concepts of rent and various definitions employed by economists up to date needs clarifications. Obviously, every economic notion is embedded in the transformations of the socio-historical contexts of production and distribution. However, in this paper we argue for a mismatch between the metamorphosis and multiplication of the substance of rent on the one hand, and the evolutions of the economic definitions on the other. Although there is no universally recognized definition in the existing literature, the ‘rentiers’ are usually identified as those subjects of an economic system that derive their income from any source different from wage and profit. Therefore, the rent is primarily described as a ‘passive income’ over a property for the use of which the owner can require payments without being directly involved in the entrepreneurial activity. In a more contemporary perspective these ‘properties’ may take the form of various assets such as equities, bonds, securities, monetary deposits and other financial instruments that generate an income from interest (or dividends). Belonging to different theories of income distribution, several authors have tried to integrate different shapes of this notion in their descriptions of the economic systems. Without neglecting a general discussion of the various paradigms to which the principal schools of thought refer to, in each section of this paper we will try to answer three main theoretical questions. First, what are the sources of rents and how are they explained? Second, who are the beneficiaries of this type of income and how they behave within the socioeconomic system? Thirdly, to what extent and in which ways various forms of rent affect the accumulation processes? All these issues are interrelated with the historical configuration of the different dominant classes, production structures, and monetary systems.

The aim of this paper is to provide the analysis of the theoretical evolution from the ‘agricultural rent’ to a ‘monetary rent’, and finally to the description of a ‘financial rent’ in the current phase of capitalist development.