Thanks for the replies. I kept searching around, and I think my mistake was focusing too much on the word 'rent'. Focusing instead on 'redistribution', what hel

Thanks for the replies. I kept searching around, and I think my mistake was focusing too much on the word 'rent'. Focusing instead on 'redistribution', what helped clarify my understanding the most is the criticism that modern finance is becoming more of a zero-sum game; and 'rent' is mainly being used as the economic dirty word for this behavior. http://seekingalpha.com/article/1069231-from-positive-to-zero-to-negative-sum-capitalism http://seekingalpha.com/article/1069231-from-positive-to-zer...