LaVar Hosting Jeopardy July 26-30 Stan Account 👁

"rent-seeking involves seeking to increase one's share of existing wealth without creating new wealth."

Add cultural value as a kind of wealth and you see how, say, the Beatles' lame cover of Twist and Shout isn't much more than rent-seeking but, say, Don't Let Me Down makes new "wealth" (cultural value) of its own despite its many sources.

Of course there's the added dimension of how cultural appropriation also serves to change how cultural element x is seen in the broader culture, and sometimes you'd rather have mainstream culture know nothing about x than know white lies about x.

So the argument is, essentially, without improving the product at all (usually by making it worse), white folks increase their share of the "wealth" (including non-material positives like attention and praise and whatever).

of course they do add something, that something being whiteness, or in other cases, American-ness or Western-ness (bc American/Western POC absolutely appropriate all the time, from each other and from ppl of other nations).

this lens also maybe sheds a little light on marginal cases like accents. Are you getting more value out of this accent than a person who "naturally" has it would without adding anything? If so, might be cultural appropriation or at least yucky.