Readings:
Joseph Stiglitz, “Rent Seeking and the Making of an Unequal Society”
(New Humanities Reader)
Franklin Foer, “Mark Zuckerberg’s War on Free Will” (linked on Sakai as
an excerpt from
World Without Mind)
Prompt:
Franklin Foer discusses how Facebook, through its use of algorithms that manipulate its
users in various ways, “outsources” independent thought and encourages what Foer
calls “mechanical thinking”. Joseph Stiglitz outlines how a small societal elite can
manipulate the economy to unfairly reward itself while depriving lower-class workers of
fair compensation for their efforts. He calls this activity “rent seeking”, and though he applies it primarily to the financial sector, its definition can be more broadly applied to any industry or elite that is financially rewarded in a way that is greater than their actual creation of wealth. In a well-developed essay that makes use of the texts above, please answer the following question: In what ways can mechanical thinking contribute to the process of rent seeking?
5 full pages must use quotes and use proper citations