Breaking Monopolies, Reducing Rentier Power re Rent Extraction, and the Connections to Resource Use & "Growth"

 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800919304203

    Title - "The Threat of Rent Extraction in a Resource-constrained Future"

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There are many different types of "rents".  Don't think only in terms of living space rent.  For example, there's the renting of your labor.  There's the renting of land for purposes other than residential housing, and there are a number of other types.

The author of the above journal article proposes that private rent extraction is "a barrier to the goal of transforming economic institutions so that society can flourish within planetary boundaries [limitations]".  She maintains that concentrations of private rentier power create an imperative for unlimited growth.

For the most part, I believe that's correct.  I also believe such thoughts would be rejected outright by many people here in the USA, but not as much in Europe and elsewhere.  Why?  People here rightly would view it as democratic socialism, and they seem to have a completely black/white view of socialism v. capitalism.  To them, any form of socialism is evil (so to speak).  They tend to ignore the fact that public roads, public water systems, public parks, the VA Health Care system, USPS, public art museums, and a plethora of other public institutions are all examples of democratic socialism in action.  In short, we have a mixed economy, as do most countries of the world.

Via Edward Bernays style molding of the public mind, private and public Oligarchs in the USA have convinced too many people that Monopoly-Casino-Crony Capitalism is the same as the capitalism of Adam Smith, their economic hero.  It's not even close.  Except in the realm of very small business, Smith's capitalism no longer exists.  He did not favor monopolies, mega biz, or any kind of Oligarchy.  Rather than praising so-called "Masters of the Universe", he viewed them unfavorably.  Today's Oligarchs claim the opposite; they're wrong.

People in the EU (& Norway and Iceland, which are not formally in the EU), tend to be much more open-minded regarding economic/political ideology.  [Example: in Europe there's a political/economic philosophy known as Libertarian Socialism.  In the USA, that would be considered an oxymoron.]  Even though all those countries have enclaves of narrow-mindedness in that regard, overall they're much more flexible than the USA.  Point being:  transforming society from neoliberalism to some form of ecological economics is a tough row to hoe, but especially so in the USA.

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The article cited above deserves sincere consideration in the effort to create a world more equitable, more ecological, and more in line with the needs of all people, instead of only the privileged few.

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Not only my opinion.  Stay Well