A hard man

‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

The excuse always seemed to me to be slightly irrelevant. He accuses his master of being grasping--what has that to do with using the money? It hadn't occurred to me until one of the men pointed it out this morning, that he could be understood as accusing his master of being a "rent seeker" and benefitting from his employees' labor while not contributing any labor himself.

That fits better--perhaps the one-talent guy is claiming to be idle on principle; getting back at "the man."

Or maybe that's anachronistic. It seemed an interesting approach, though.