"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." ~ H.L. Mencken
Strangling Innovation — When Rent-Seekers and Startups Collide
Rent-seekers are individuals or organizations that have succeeded with existing business models and look to the government and regulators as their first line of defense against innovative competition. They use government regulation and lawsuits to keep out new entrants with more innovative business models. They use every argument from public safety to lack of quality or loss of jobs to lobby against the new entrants. Rent-seekers spend money to increase their share of an existing market instead of creating new products or markets. The key idea is that rent-seeking behavior creates nothing of value.
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