Are we the baddies?

What meta structure allows us to get rid of rent seeking behavior?

I don’t have an answer - is there scientific research on this?

Taxation? Loopholes will be found.

Lawfare against it? Lobbying will win.

I am amazed by capitalism, but at the same time it is a ruthless machine - and in democratic countries it is highly unlikely that a single political party can force the machine into a new direction. Perhaps that is a very nice feature, at the cost of also having to tolerate rent seeking, but it sure as hell sucks to see these downsides.

The bitter truth is that Nirvana doesn't exist.

There is no perfect system. But we can choose the least detrimental.

What can we do to make rent-seeking hurt society less? Imo we should start by decoupling money from power. Right now, people are forced to participate in the rent-seekers game because his wealth implies power over them.

Social cohesion. People are happy to rip off an outsider, a stranger, a schmuck. But people within a high-trust social group generally don't rip each other off - you still need to be on the look out for fraudsters, but you won't be doing it systematically and virtually openly.

It's not a coincidence that all this has happened as the US' national identity has gotten weaker and weaker. They're shifting from a cohesive nation to one of those "it's a single block on the map but it's actually 200 tribes who all hate each other" countries, and people's values and behaviour are shifting to match.