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"... for the creation of consumer surplus." Adam Smith describes mercantilism, which is nearly pure rent-seeking and capitalism. which is oh so much less so.

"... for the creation of consumer surplus." Adam Smith describes mercantilism, which is nearly pure rent-seeking and capitalism. which is oh so much less so. If you have a royal patent on all beaver pelts from the New World - to where your corporation can order the sinking of ships carrying contraband beaver pelts - then this is nearly pure rent-seeking. Rent seeking grows like weeds at the edges of capitalism, but it is not, strictly speaking, capitalist but rather that which capitalism replaces. This may seem pedantic but it's actually pretty useful.

CuriousSkeptic 11y ago
Did Adam Smith differentiate between free market economies in general and capitalism in particular? It seems to me that much of his work is about the former rather than the latter,taking capitalism as the only instance. A quote from Wikipedia[1]: "Smith defined "capital" as stock, and "profit" as the just expectation of retaining the revenue from improvements made to that stock. Smith also viewed capital improvement as being the proper central aim of the economic and political system" So, in capitalism this is implemented as private property. (A perpetual, transferable, exclusive right to some resource) If we f.ex. changed the implementation from perpetual to time limited non-transferable, we could do so in a manner that would retain the expectation of retaining just enough revenue from improvements. Would this still be capitalism? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_capitalist_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_capitalist_theory (The actual source was a broken link)
- ArkyBeagle 11y ago
  I think your question is about 50 to 100 years later than Smith. He, so far as I know, did not distinguish between capitalism and free markets. His work was nearly ahead of its time as written anyway. The "time limited" thing sounds more like 19th Century Progressive thinking informed of Ricardo. It sounds basically like George to my ear. And dependent on how all the math works, I can see no reason it would not be an improvement on perpetual ownership.

CuriousSkeptic 11y ago

Did Adam Smith differentiate between free market economies in general and capitalism in particular? It seems to me that much of his work is about the former rather than the latter,taking capitalism as the only instance. A quote from Wikipedia[1]: "Smith defined "capital" as stock, and "profit" as the just expectation of retaining the revenue from improvements made to that stock. Smith also viewed capital improvement as being the proper central aim of the economic and political system" So, in capitalism this is implemented as private property. (A perpetual, transferable, exclusive right to some resource) If we f.ex. changed the implementation from perpetual to time limited non-transferable, we could do so in a manner that would retain the expectation of retaining just enough revenue from improvements. Would this still be capitalism? [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_capitalist_theory https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_capitalist_theory (The actual source was a broken link)

ArkyBeagle 11y ago
I think your question is about 50 to 100 years later than Smith. He, so far as I know, did not distinguish between capitalism and free markets. His work was nearly ahead of its time as written anyway. The "time limited" thing sounds more like 19th Century Progressive thinking informed of Ricardo. It sounds basically like George to my ear. And dependent on how all the math works, I can see no reason it would not be an improvement on perpetual ownership.