To mooch means "to get something at the expense of someone else." To me that seems a fair word to describe the concept of withdrawing social value at someone else's expense. Social value doesn't come from thin air, so if you withdraw more than you contribute, someone else has to pick up your slack.
Ayn Rand used the term looter. I figured moocher was a little nicer. Leech or parasite would be other possibilities I suppose.
While there's a negative stigma associated with the word moocher, it's really just a descriptive term. Children mooch off their parents as a matter of course, and that's considered perfectly normal. |