“Unions have been called rent-seekers from time to time, but I believe this is very rare and with today’s weak and disorganized labour, this form of rent-seeking has virtually disappeared. . . So many of today’s corporations are Monopolies or Oligopolies and invest heavily in Lobbyists.”

Would you classify service organizations such as unions and lobbyists as rent-seekers? Unions negotiate increased benefits for workers that adds no value to their manufactured product but enables workers to acquire wealth. Corporation lobbyists influence government to enable their clients to suppress worker benefits to increase profit and decrease taxes on their profits to increase wealth that has no impact on the value of their manufactured product.

“Salaries above market value are economic rents.”

What evaluation criteria determines when salaries are above market value? Is it what the market will bear? The salary for the CEO of a large corporation can be excessive without significantly impacting the corporation’s operating cost and profit. However, the CEO’s compensation may not be proportional to the CEO’s impact on the success of the corporation. On the other hand, worker employee benefits do have a significant impact on a corporation’s operating cost and profit.

In my opinion the decrease in capital gains taxes, the decreasing influence of unions, the increasing influence of corporation lobbyists, and the expansion of global markets during the past several decades has significantly contributed to the current imbalance of wealth accumulation potential for workers vs the wealthy.