What is called the national pastime oper- ates 30 teams in 28 cities from April through Oc- tober. Another national pastime is much more ubiquitous and constant—it goes on everywhere, year-round. The technical name for it is "rent seeking," and a manifestation of it in Tennessee proves that you cannot avoid it even by dying. Rent seeking is what economists call the bending of public power for private economic advantage. Sometimes it is the use of government by interest groups to confer advantages on themselves (e.g., tariffs and import quotas to protect the textile industry and sugar growers). Sometimes it is the use of government to impose disadvantages on competitors. The government's antitrust action against Microsoft is, in part, successful rent seeking by a Microsoft competitor, Netscape.
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