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Monopoly is set up as a zero sum game, exactly like actual capitalism is. If we give you $20 if art materials, we can't give Picasso those materials because yo

Monopoly is set up as a zero sum game, exactly like actual capitalism is. If we give you $20 if art materials, we can't give Picasso those materials because you already have them. The world is finite. Resources are finite, and infinite expansion is impossible.

WalterBright 9y ago
> infinite expansion is impossible. Software is a fine counterexample. It's made of bits, which cost nothing to create, and the value is in the order of the bits, not the bits themselves.
colbyh 9y ago
you are twisting his words. there are sound arguments against capitalism and wealth creation but "resources are spent when you do things with them" isn't on the list.
adventured 9y ago
> The world is finite. Resources are finite, and infinite expansion is impossible. If you were right, the $10 trillion China added to its economy annually (you know, just ~$64 trillion of new GDP that didn't exist before, over the next five years) - in just the span of ~16 years, would have had to come out of someone else's pocket, which would have caused extreme collapse in numerous other major economies to make room for it. That of course didn't happen at all, the rest of the globe's GDP expanded along with China in real terms. For all realistic practical purposes - since we're nowhere near maximum resource utilization - that has yet to be an actual problem and we're up to 7.x billion people now. Every serious problem to that expansion, we've managed to solve, enabling continued expansion (see: we were all supposed to starve to death decades ago). Back in reality - and out of the realm of theory that only exists in a strict vacuum - Capitalism is the exact opposite of a zero sum game. That has been proven by the radical improvement in living standards at the median for all the developed nations, all of which heavily utilize the free market economic system (including all of the Scandinavian nations, none of which are actually Socialist at all). If Capitalism were a zero sum game, China would not have just enjoyed the greatest, fastest mass standard of living improvement in world history thanks to its modest adoption of the free market, and its blatant shift away from Statism. The free market largely won globally, and thanks to that, the world has less poverty, war, violence and starvation than at any other time in history.
- stradivarious 9y ago
  You sound just like a preacher. That's right because what you're preaching is a religion, not an economic system. All economic systems have matured and were finally replaced by something better. Given the level of crisis we see nowadays, the time for capitalism's replacement doesn't seem to be very far away.
- c22 9y ago
  > the world has less poverty, war, violence and starvation than at any other time in history. Is this true, though? Certainly as a percentage of global population things like poverty and hunger are in decline but some of this can be attributed to population increases. There were 795 million hungry people in 2015 [1], but this is more people than were alive in 1750. It stands to reason that 300 years ago there were considerably fewer individuals living on the brink of starvation. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/06/01/411265021/there-are-200-million-fewer-hungry-people-than-25-years-ago http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/06/01/41126502...
  - taurath 9y ago
    In raw numbers, but the rate is what's important.
    - c22 9y ago
      Why?
      - taurath 9y ago
        If 5 billion people are on the planet and 10% are in poverty, its probably better to be that 10% (trending downward) than it would be if you had 1 billion people at 40% poverty (trending flat).
  - redial 9y ago
    Statistics can be used in many ways. You could also say that the "system" was able to feed and care for almost 6 billion people in 2015, almost the number of people estimated to have been alive since 10.000 BC until 1950.
polishTar 9y ago
Energy might be conserved, but wealth is not. Life is not a zero sum game. Society is vastly more wealthy than we've ever been before. Access to education, medicine, information, transportation, entertainment are at all time highs. Life expectancies continue to rise and gdp adjusted by purchasing power on a per capita basis is up over 40% in the last 3 decades.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Nitpick: Life expectancy has actually trended down slightly in the US, and is behind most other first world countries. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/02/22/us-life-expectancy-is-low-and-is-now-projected-to-be-on-par-with-mexico-by-2030.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/02/22/us-life-expectancy-is-lo...
  - polishTar 9y ago
    Not exactly true. Life expectancy hasn't slipped, although admittedly it hasn't been increasing very fast in the last couple of years (up only 1 year over the last decade). http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/69206 http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/69206 Either way, you shouldn't look too much at short term trends when trying to measure long term development. If you start from 1990, life expectancy has actually risen by 4 years.

WalterBright 9y ago

> infinite expansion is impossible. Software is a fine counterexample. It's made of bits, which cost nothing to create, and the value is in the order of the bits, not the bits themselves.

colbyh 9y ago

you are twisting his words. there are sound arguments against capitalism and wealth creation but "resources are spent when you do things with them" isn't on the list.

adventured 9y ago

> The world is finite. Resources are finite, and infinite expansion is impossible. If you were right, the $10 trillion China added to its economy annually (you know, just ~$64 trillion of new GDP that didn't exist before, over the next five years) - in just the span of ~16 years, would have had to come out of someone else's pocket, which would have caused extreme collapse in numerous other major economies to make room for it. That of course didn't happen at all, the rest of the globe's GDP expanded along with China in real terms. For all realistic practical purposes - since we're nowhere near maximum resource utilization - that has yet to be an actual problem and we're up to 7.x billion people now. Every serious problem to that expansion, we've managed to solve, enabling continued expansion (see: we were all supposed to starve to death decades ago). Back in reality - and out of the realm of theory that only exists in a strict vacuum - Capitalism is the exact opposite of a zero sum game. That has been proven by the radical improvement in living standards at the median for all the developed nations, all of which heavily utilize the free market economic system (including all of the Scandinavian nations, none of which are actually Socialist at all). If Capitalism were a zero sum game, China would not have just enjoyed the greatest, fastest mass standard of living improvement in world history thanks to its modest adoption of the free market, and its blatant shift away from Statism. The free market largely won globally, and thanks to that, the world has less poverty, war, violence and starvation than at any other time in history.

stradivarious 9y ago
You sound just like a preacher. That's right because what you're preaching is a religion, not an economic system. All economic systems have matured and were finally replaced by something better. Given the level of crisis we see nowadays, the time for capitalism's replacement doesn't seem to be very far away.
c22 9y ago
> the world has less poverty, war, violence and starvation than at any other time in history. Is this true, though? Certainly as a percentage of global population things like poverty and hunger are in decline but some of this can be attributed to population increases. There were 795 million hungry people in 2015 [1], but this is more people than were alive in 1750. It stands to reason that 300 years ago there were considerably fewer individuals living on the brink of starvation. [1] http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/06/01/411265021/there-are-200-million-fewer-hungry-people-than-25-years-ago http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2015/06/01/41126502...
- taurath 9y ago
  In raw numbers, but the rate is what's important.
  - c22 9y ago
    Why?
    - taurath 9y ago
      If 5 billion people are on the planet and 10% are in poverty, its probably better to be that 10% (trending downward) than it would be if you had 1 billion people at 40% poverty (trending flat).
- redial 9y ago
  Statistics can be used in many ways. You could also say that the "system" was able to feed and care for almost 6 billion people in 2015, almost the number of people estimated to have been alive since 10.000 BC until 1950.

polishTar 9y ago

Energy might be conserved, but wealth is not. Life is not a zero sum game. Society is vastly more wealthy than we've ever been before. Access to education, medicine, information, transportation, entertainment are at all time highs. Life expectancies continue to rise and gdp adjusted by purchasing power on a per capita basis is up over 40% in the last 3 decades.

toomuchtodo 9y ago
Nitpick: Life expectancy has actually trended down slightly in the US, and is behind most other first world countries. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/02/22/us-life-expectancy-is-low-and-is-now-projected-to-be-on-par-with-mexico-by-2030.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/02/22/us-life-expectancy-is-lo...
- polishTar 9y ago
  Not exactly true. Life expectancy hasn't slipped, although admittedly it hasn't been increasing very fast in the last couple of years (up only 1 year over the last decade). http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/69206 http://hdr.undp.org/en/indicators/69206 Either way, you shouldn't look too much at short term trends when trying to measure long term development. If you start from 1990, life expectancy has actually risen by 4 years.