[monocasa]

> As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.

as well as

> They [landlords] are the only one of the three orders whose revenue costs them neither labour nor care, but comes to them, as it were, of its own accord, and independent of any plan or project of their own.

[p0nce]

Exactly I was thinking about the first one.

The internet giants "reap where they never sowed".

[simonh]

I just don’t think that argument is viable. They provide ongoing highly valued services people choose to pay for. Advertising for Google and Facebook, retail and hosting services for Amazon, physical products and online services for Apple, etc. They employ hundreds of thousands of people, are constantly updating and extending their products and services. That’s all serious work done by actual people.

I’m not justifying everything they do, or all their business practices, but if these companies didn’t provide those services someone else would. There’s a genuine need.

[p0nce]

I completely disagree.

[simonh]

Well, their customers do agree and that's what actually matters, regardless of what you and I think.

[MaxGanzII]

Neither of which is Smith asserting rents are parasitic.

He describes economics; others put opinions into his words.

[alecbz]

"Parasitic" can be descriptive? I means roughly someone that takes from a system without giving to or benefiting it.

Parasitic does have a fairly strong negative connotation, and Smith doesn't literally use the word, but those two passages do seem to have somewhat of a negative connotation to them, to my reading.