AGREED: ‘Financialization of All the Things’ is Parasitism, not Capitalism.

Friend-of-the-blog Alexandria Brown offered up a recent X/tweet addressing the financialization of, well, everything in business and commerce, and how it should be viewed in relation to the ideal of capitalism. Specifically, Alex wrote: ”Here’s a fun question to which I have not made up my mind even a little bit: is the financialization of All The Things a form of capitalism which is at least tolerable or is it so reductive of human life and endeavors as to be past a limitation on acceptable commercial behavior?”

Those of us who advocate for free markets understand that capitalism also presents an opportunity for bad actors to misbehave within the system. Be it 20th century snake oil salesmen peddling patent medicines, or 21st century Wall Street investment bankers selling pools of subprime mortgages as high-quality securities, there have always been bad actors exploiting the opportunities within a free market.

But just because we conservatives endorse capitalism doesn’t mean we must endorse – or even tolerate – the worst practices that occur therein.

In my opinion, the “financialization-of-all-the-things” is a form of parasitism that does not create wealth, rather it serves to extract the accumulated wealth from entities where wealth has previously been created.

Read the whole thing.