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> One person's wealth does not come at the expense of another's. Not sure I agree with that. Even in the US, we can point to slavery or even more recently disc

by lotso 10y ago

> One person's wealth does not come at the expense of another's. Not sure I agree with that. Even in the US, we can point to slavery or even more recently discriminatory housing/zoning laws. I'm sure someone with more knowledge than me can provide a better argument here.

nugget 10y ago
Bingo. Housing and zoning laws are the definition of protecting incumbent wealth at the expense of new participants who would like to join the system.
poke111 10y ago
I don't mean that nobody can be harmed in the process of creating wealth - certainly they can. I mean that the process of accumulating wealth is not zero-sum: each dollar that I earn is not a dollar that somebody else lost. The economy is not some big pie that we split up unequally. The process of creating wealth increases the size of the pie.
- ebrenes 10y ago
  I would concede that yes, the process of creating wealth does increase the overall size of the pie, but it does not increase the size of this pie proportionally for all involved. That increase in pie, is the aggregate effect on the outstanding wealth. So, it could follow any such distribution that in the ends provides a net win. For example, automating some job will not increase the level of wealth of those who have now become jobless. It will undoubtedly increase the wealth of those who are now benefited by this automation, and in the end it will be a net win for the economy. However, those who were negatively affected see no benefit from this increase in the pie. I believe that wealth is sometimes increased through tactics and strategies that negatively affect the wealth of other through mechanisms such as slavery, indentured servitude, extremely low wages and other situations that take advantage of the less advantaged (usually in 3rd world countries). So yeah, the size of the pie increases, but those bigger slices are not appearing on everyone's plates, and often times people are ending up without any pie on their plate.

by lotso 10y ago

nugget 10y ago

Bingo. Housing and zoning laws are the definition of protecting incumbent wealth at the expense of new participants who would like to join the system.

poke111 10y ago

I don't mean that nobody can be harmed in the process of creating wealth - certainly they can. I mean that the process of accumulating wealth is not zero-sum: each dollar that I earn is not a dollar that somebody else lost. The economy is not some big pie that we split up unequally. The process of creating wealth increases the size of the pie.

ebrenes 10y ago
I would concede that yes, the process of creating wealth does increase the overall size of the pie, but it does not increase the size of this pie proportionally for all involved. That increase in pie, is the aggregate effect on the outstanding wealth. So, it could follow any such distribution that in the ends provides a net win. For example, automating some job will not increase the level of wealth of those who have now become jobless. It will undoubtedly increase the wealth of those who are now benefited by this automation, and in the end it will be a net win for the economy. However, those who were negatively affected see no benefit from this increase in the pie. I believe that wealth is sometimes increased through tactics and strategies that negatively affect the wealth of other through mechanisms such as slavery, indentured servitude, extremely low wages and other situations that take advantage of the less advantaged (usually in 3rd world countries). So yeah, the size of the pie increases, but those bigger slices are not appearing on everyone's plates, and often times people are ending up without any pie on their plate.