RE: What is a rent-seeking economy? Has the EU become one?

If you look at the economic trajectory of the EU vs the US over the last few decades the answer is pretty obvious. There is a chart that has gone around showing this clearly.

If you then put Israel on the chart you realise that Israel has gone from 2nd world to top of the first world while the EU has gone in the opposite direction.

Israel's GDP per capita now exceeds every EU country over 10M people.

While there are still some corners of rent seeking and monopolies resultant from having previously been a small economy, the direction is towards more "productivity and innovation that creates real value."

Argentina and El Salvador are also countries that rapidly rising after throwing off socialism and bureaucracy.