ABSTRACT
Neil Smith presented rent gap theory in the context of a critique of consumer sovereignty and the naturalisation of markets. Private property in land constitutes the very foundation of rent gaps, as it allows for extraction of capitalised land rents, speculative bidding on future rents and the discernment of potential rents under 'higher and better' land uses. To make rent gap theory not true, the ongoing commodification of land, nature and space must be ceased and turned around. To make rent gap theory not true, inequalities need to be radically diminished. Making rent gap theory not true requires political, economic and judicial reforms geared to foster use-value oriented decision-making processes in all spheres of investment, that is the deepening of democracy. If the myth of market fundamentalism is a co-evolutionary partner with privatisation, polarisation and financialisation, working together to make rent gap theory true, then making rent gap theory not true must involve engaging alternative myths and metaphors.
