Holman Jenkins in The Wall Srteet Journal, A Better Way to Bring the ‘Elites’ Into Line:

excerpts:

Business leaders. Management is a pragmatic exercise, so of course business leaders lobby for government policies that reduce their risks and hamper their competitors or prospective competitors.

“Rent extraction” is economist-speak for the tax in many forms that government places on people trying to go about their business and engage in voluntary transactions. Rent extraction is the activity that defines elites.

Rent extraction in all its forms reduces productivity and economic growth for everyone. Do you find yourself living in a nation where the elites are a disappointment? The question is a redundancy, but there is a solution: Hardheadedly reduce the scope of rent extraction by shrinking the ambitions and powers of government.

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