Rent-seeking doesn’t produce value by definition. This means that people will argue over what actually counts as rent-seeking. I am not going to define rent-seeking, but a similar activity is fighting over the dividing a fixed pie. Dividing the pie is a zero-sum game. Effort expended towards changing the outcome does not grow the pie. If that effort could have been spent on something productive, it should be thought of as destroying value.
Rent-seeking doesn’t produce value by definition. This means that people will argue over what actually counts as rent-seeking. I am not going to define rent-seeking, but a similar activity is fighting over the dividing a fixed pie. Dividing the pie is a zero-sum game. Effort expended towards changing the outcome does not grow the pie. If that effort could have been spent on something productive, it should be thought of as destroying value.