Dan
Fuzz-RaAdam Smith warned against rent-seeking.
Pike the investor class.
@Fuzz_Ra i don't disagree with you, but hasten to add that rent seeking is the prerogative of all corporations and moneyed classes. as useful a framework as it is for common terms, no economics literature written by economists considers the null hypothesis and all ignore or give short-shrift to societal differences outside of a ~200 year blip in human history.
The trick is keeping it restrained enough to be useful. Alas, the last fifty years have been a bit lacking on that front.
@Fuzz_Ra useful in what sense, though? maybe for common terms describing a system, but an economic model that fails to account for the hobbyist labor that underpins most of our modern world seems to be woefully incomplete at the very least.
not even talking about macro and its lack of predictive power - even basic preconceptions break down under any serious scrutiny.
Useful in the sense of getting hold of the funds to actually do a thing. Within the system we're lumbered with for now. Things weren't great before but movie villain yachts were forty feet long and didn't have submarine bays or helipads because the fuckers were taxed on the benefits they gained from the wider economy.
I'm absolutely with you on the hobbyist labour stuff. I've been known (give or take trying to hide) to do a spot of that.
@Fuzz_Ra sadly, that, too, was a small blip. when unions had actual power, when half the workforce was able to suddenly get remunerative work and participate in the political process, when solidarity was a national policy.
go to the robber barons or any further back and you see the disparity between the average working person and the moneyed classes. whether it be by divine birthright and/or grift, this goes back to class struggle all the way to the invention of agriculture.