A WORD TO REPLACE “CAPITALISM”.

A WORD TO REPLACE “CAPITALISM”. There are a lot of poor words for concepts in economics. As I posted here, “rent” and “rent-seeking” are examples. “Privilege-seeking” would be a better name for “rent-seeking”. Kids, note Henry Nejako’s comment. Reasonable men can differ on whether an expenditure is a “privilege”. However, the word “rent-seeking” is always misleading in a world where the word “rent” is associated with landlords.

This article by James Pethokoukis about Dierdre McCloskey points out that she does not like the word “capitalism”. She suggests instead:

* “technological and institutional betterment at a frenetic pace, tested by unforced exchange among all the parties involved”; or

* “fantastically successful liberalism, in the old European sense, applied to trade and politics, as it was applied also to science and music and painting and literature”; or

* “trade-tested progress.”