@syntaxseed @jbenjamint @neil See also https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/24/rent-to-pwn/#kitt-is-a-demon

"capitalism has died – but it wasn't replaced by socialism. Rather, capitalism has given way to feudalism"

"for hundreds of years, European civilization was dominated by rents, not markets. A "rent" is income that you get from owning something that other people need to produce value."

"Capitalist philosophers railed against rent. The "free market" of Adam Smith wasn't a market that was free from regulation – it was a market free from rents."

"Today, we live in a rentier's paradise."

"Shopping at Amazon is like visiting a bustling city center full of stores – but each of those stores' owners has to pay the majority of every sale to a feudal landlord, Emperor Jeff Bezos, who also decides which goods they can sell and where they must appear on the shelves. Amazon is full of capitalists, but it is not a capitalist enterprise. It's a feudal one."