rapacious

There’s only one thing worse than being exploited by rapacious capitalists and that’s not being exploited by them.

Mr. Modi would do well to heed complaints by ordinary people in the world’s largest democracy and curb rapacious officials’ power to extract bribes.

But the cynicism that has always thrummed underneath his high-concept comedies — the dehumanizing algorithms, the rapacious finance system — is more prominent in this slim, potent novel.

“It wouldn’t work. The United States has a rapacious appetite for pushing kids. But I can at least make sure a child is given their sweet time in kindergarten,” she said.

Even in the triumph of the worst, which is the age of robber barons and the age of rapacious capitalism and imperialism, even those things were being contested.