Builders, renters, extractors

On real estate, rental cars, and why it's harder to protect good institutions in easier times than hard ones

Every social organization tends to have three types of members: Builders, renters, and extractors. Builders, as the name implies, are the ones who can be trusted to improve upon what they find, leaving things stronger and more durable than before.

■ Renters show up for the time they’re around and are mainly inert. They fill the space, but they don’t transform what’s around them. Just as nobody washes a rental car, no renter does much to enhance the social organization. Extractors, on the other hand, are active about withdrawing from the accumulated value of the organization. Extractors see what’s in front of them as a pile of treasure to be used for their own gain.

■ Different times call for more or fewer builders and renters. Homesteaders had to be builders, whether they liked it or not. Renting tends to be a luxury of success; as things get better, more people can contribute less from day to day. Social renting, like its counterpart in housing, creates a convenient distance for the renter, who generally finds it easier to move away than the builder.

■ Progress has made it much easier for America and American institutions to tolerate lots of social renters. But a lot of people have gone from renting to outright extraction. It’s not a sustainable path. Some extract literally, by doing things like taking oversized pay for underwhelming service to important institutions. Others do it indirectly or even figuratively, by actively pursuing a policy of “Whatever is best for me” anywhere they go.

■ Letting this go on for much longer without some kind of course correction would be a grave mistake. Lots of knowledge is embedded within our institutions, from government agencies to social clubs, and letting them decay is a way of erasing that embedded knowledge, which was often won through hard and costly experience. Ben Franklin wrote, “Experience keeps a dear school, yet fools will learn in no other.” Ending that foolishness requires a step further upstream, convincing those who would be renters or extractors to become builders instead.