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Most of the economy in the so called "developed countries" is nowadays a zero-sum game between winners and losers. Seen from a macro perspective, it resembles a

Most of the economy in the so called "developed countries" is nowadays a zero-sum game between winners and losers. Seen from a macro perspective, it resembles a multi-agent system where independent agents compete to provide inessential products and services in exchange for being able to afford basic necessities like housing, food and child care. The finite resource that such companies are fighting for is people's attention and time. Some win, others lose, but the status quo is that we are sweating from work in order to live in a world with smart refrigerators, automatic garage doors and pointless baby toys. And if we had more spare time, why would we even think of that. What we really need is a change in paradigm because market forces will mostly solve only small "consumer" problems and cannot reorganise our society in a more efficient way.

jopsen 8y ago
> ...because market forces will mostly solve only small "consumer" problems and cannot reorganise our society in a more efficient way. Market forces have repeatedly reorganized our society from farms to factories and increasingly from factories to offices.. But we might need to tweak the incentives and refactor regulation.
- DataWorker 8y ago
  Silliness. Why has the 40 hour week persisted? Market forces. Climate change? Market forces. The persistence of the slave trade? Market forces. Prostitution and human trafficking, opioids, disintegration of the family, Facebook; all your good friend “market forces”.
  - coliveira 8y ago
    Exactly, worship of capitalism is a disease where the afflicted can only see the advantages of this "fantastic" system. Despite the widespread evidence that there are many problems in the world that are directly caused by market forces, with the obvious conclusion that there is nothing a priori "benign" about these market forces that are worshiped by so many.
    - klearvue 8y ago
      "Market forces" is just another way of saying "individual choices". Restricting individual choices has certainly been practised across a number of political and economic systems but there is always a question - who decides what to restrict?
      - onemoresoop 8y ago
        Let's start with an entity that doesn't have the first incentive of profit and power acumulation?
      - coliveira 8y ago
        > "Market forces" is just another way of saying "individual choices" This is false because my individual choice matters infinitesimally less in the market than the choice of Coca-cola or any other large big corporation. In the other hand, I have a lot more power in the market than a homeless for example. So the right answer is that market forces are "weighted individual choices", and when a few of these individuals have billions in their bank account my individual choice is worth close to zero.
  - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
    > Why has the 40 hour week persisted? Market forces. Mostly zoning laws, burdensome regulations and government subsidies, really. If housing, education and healthcare still cost in real terms what they did in 1950 then people could afford to work 20 hours a week if they wanted to, but they're stuck working 40 hours because of government policies that cause price inflation and cost disease. > Climate change? Market forces. Markets require consent to operate. The victims of climate change didn't consent and should have every right to sue. > The persistence of the slave trade? Market forces. It was actually market forces that destroyed the slave trade. The rise of factories gave the slaves something much better to run away to, which made "slaves running away" a thing that happened so much more often that the entire system started to disintegrate. It's not a coincidence that the Civil War was between the industrialized North and the slave-owning South. Also, slavery is obviously the epitome of not being a free market. > Prostitution and human trafficking, opioids, disintegration of the family, Facebook; all your good friend “market forces”. Prostitution is dangerous primarily because it's illegal. Human trafficking is slavery again. The opioid crisis is caused primarily by the War on Drugs and failed government policies that make it hard and expensive to seek medical treatment while causing black market drugs to have high but inconsistent potency and all the other issues. Disintegration of the family is mostly a result of social assistance programs replacing the need for social ties with government programs. Facebook is lame but it's also in decline. That is how the market is supposed to work -- things people hate fall out of favor. You haven't chosen very good examples.
    - hexane360 8y ago
      >Mostly zoning laws, burdensome regulations and government subsidies, really. If housing, education and healthcare still cost in real terms what they did in 1950 then people could afford to work 20 hours a week if they wanted to, but they're stuck working 40 hours because of government policies that cause price inflation and cost disease. You arguing this is really ironic because the only reason they're working only 40 hour weeks to begin with is labor regulation. The free market didn't give factory workers 8 hour shifts.
      - AnthonyMouse 8y ago
petra 8y ago
>> because market forces will mostly solve only small "consumer" problems and cannot reorganise our society in a more efficient way. That's true. But also, can most people really, truly, contribute to big, important problems in our society - in the context of globalization and automation ?
- fwip 8y ago
  Could most people contribute to (solving) big important problems before globalization or automation?
  - petra 8y ago
    It depends how far back we're talking about, but sure. Before the industrial revolution, most people made food. That's important. After the industrial revolution, but before ww2,the standard of living was low, so most manufactured goods we're pretty important - be it a car, a fridge, a pot, etc - but maybe less important than food. Afterwards, came consumerism, with a lot of low value stuff. So it seems that with time, many people do less significant things at work.
seibelj 8y ago
I’m sorry that this is your world view, because it is deeply flawed and focusing on such cynicism leads to depression. Most of HN lives in a tech bubble where everyone is focused on building semi-useless software like you describe. However the majority of society still does “normal” things like construction, manufacturing, sales, etc. and some sort of fundamental reorganizing of society on non-market principles doesn’t change that someone needs to maintain our physical infrastructure and keep the lights on. The economy is not a zero-sum game. If I make more money there is not someone else losing. The more jobs there are, the more needs fulfilled, the more services provided the better it is for everyone as more money moves around. It’s not on someone else to tell me what I should and should not want. If I desire it and a company provides it for a price, it doesn’t matter that the smart refrigerator is a waste in your vision. The market demands, and entrepreneurs provide.
- petra 8y ago
  >> It’s not on someone else to tell me what I should and should not want. That's true. >> If I desire it and a company provides it for a price, it doesn’t matter that the smart refrigerator is a waste in your vision. People are not good at knowing(or at least acting) on what will make them deeply happy, happier over the longer term, or even just happy. Psychological research tells us that. Add to that the power of advertising, so yes, people do want many things of little value.
  - seibelj 8y ago
    I’d rather trust individuals to make their own purchasing decisions, and let the market experiment and figure out what is best, than reorganize society on non-market principles and let a committee determine what people should and should not want. Research may state that no one knows what will make themselves happy, but isn’t that one of life’s challenges? Finding happiness and purpose? I don’t need an academic paper to tell me happiness is difficult to attain.
    - petra 8y ago
      >> Research may state that no one knows what will make themselves happy, but isn’t that one of life’s challenges? Sure. But if people don't really know what makes them happy, maybe they'll buy a lot of useless stuff ?
rogerkirkness 8y ago
Certainly someone who thinks the economy is zero sum is a terrible candidate for "more efficient reorganization of society."
kristianc 8y ago
> Some win, others lose, but the status quo is that we are sweating from work in order to live in a world with smart refrigerators, automatic garage doors and pointless baby toys. Where do you draw the line as to what is frivolous or not? Technology in the kitchen and the Pill enabled women to go to work and to delay childbirth to a time of their choosing. More to the point, who are you to decide on where the line is?
MR4D 8y ago
You’re correct, but for reasons different than you may think. Economies tend not to be zero sum, but they do float thru it. Here’s what I mean: As a whole, economies either need capital (countries like Mexico) or produce excess capital (the US). Ignore that hey are neighbors here, that’s just a coincidence. Countries that produce excess capital are not zero-sum. Countries that need capital can actually be zero or negative sum. However, what you’ve seen over the last couple decades is an aging demographic curve that had shifted the population for producers to spenders over time. When you retire, you become a spender (you are no longer producing capital, but are spending it). As a result of this shift, many of the countries we think about as developed, are stagnating, and that looks like a zero sum situation. It may be, but it is only temporary- although temporary might last up to 3 or 4 decades. For a quick reference, Japan is the most obvious example here, dealing with fundamental stagnation. Germany is about to hit that too (they probably already have, but it usually takes a few years for the everyday economist to have the documentation to call it as such). China will follow a couple years later. The US has some of the same. Gen X is smaller than the baby boomers. As such, it’s hard for the generation to pay for the retirement of the previous generation. Hopefully Millenials will be productive enough soon enough to offset this.

jopsen 8y ago

> ...because market forces will mostly solve only small "consumer" problems and cannot reorganise our society in a more efficient way. Market forces have repeatedly reorganized our society from farms to factories and increasingly from factories to offices.. But we might need to tweak the incentives and refactor regulation.

DataWorker 8y ago
Silliness. Why has the 40 hour week persisted? Market forces. Climate change? Market forces. The persistence of the slave trade? Market forces. Prostitution and human trafficking, opioids, disintegration of the family, Facebook; all your good friend “market forces”.
- coliveira 8y ago
  Exactly, worship of capitalism is a disease where the afflicted can only see the advantages of this "fantastic" system. Despite the widespread evidence that there are many problems in the world that are directly caused by market forces, with the obvious conclusion that there is nothing a priori "benign" about these market forces that are worshiped by so many.
  - klearvue 8y ago
    "Market forces" is just another way of saying "individual choices". Restricting individual choices has certainly been practised across a number of political and economic systems but there is always a question - who decides what to restrict?
    - onemoresoop 8y ago
      Let's start with an entity that doesn't have the first incentive of profit and power acumulation?
    - coliveira 8y ago
      > "Market forces" is just another way of saying "individual choices" This is false because my individual choice matters infinitesimally less in the market than the choice of Coca-cola or any other large big corporation. In the other hand, I have a lot more power in the market than a homeless for example. So the right answer is that market forces are "weighted individual choices", and when a few of these individuals have billions in their bank account my individual choice is worth close to zero.
- AnthonyMouse 8y ago
  > Why has the 40 hour week persisted? Market forces. Mostly zoning laws, burdensome regulations and government subsidies, really. If housing, education and healthcare still cost in real terms what they did in 1950 then people could afford to work 20 hours a week if they wanted to, but they're stuck working 40 hours because of government policies that cause price inflation and cost disease. > Climate change? Market forces. Markets require consent to operate. The victims of climate change didn't consent and should have every right to sue. > The persistence of the slave trade? Market forces. It was actually market forces that destroyed the slave trade. The rise of factories gave the slaves something much better to run away to, which made "slaves running away" a thing that happened so much more often that the entire system started to disintegrate. It's not a coincidence that the Civil War was between the industrialized North and the slave-owning South. Also, slavery is obviously the epitome of not being a free market. > Prostitution and human trafficking, opioids, disintegration of the family, Facebook; all your good friend “market forces”. Prostitution is dangerous primarily because it's illegal. Human trafficking is slavery again. The opioid crisis is caused primarily by the War on Drugs and failed government policies that make it hard and expensive to seek medical treatment while causing black market drugs to have high but inconsistent potency and all the other issues. Disintegration of the family is mostly a result of social assistance programs replacing the need for social ties with government programs. Facebook is lame but it's also in decline. That is how the market is supposed to work -- things people hate fall out of favor. You haven't chosen very good examples.
  - hexane360 8y ago
    >Mostly zoning laws, burdensome regulations and government subsidies, really. If housing, education and healthcare still cost in real terms what they did in 1950 then people could afford to work 20 hours a week if they wanted to, but they're stuck working 40 hours because of government policies that cause price inflation and cost disease. You arguing this is really ironic because the only reason they're working only 40 hour weeks to begin with is labor regulation. The free market didn't give factory workers 8 hour shifts.
    - AnthonyMouse 8y ago

petra 8y ago

>> because market forces will mostly solve only small "consumer" problems and cannot reorganise our society in a more efficient way. That's true. But also, can most people really, truly, contribute to big, important problems in our society - in the context of globalization and automation ?

fwip 8y ago
Could most people contribute to (solving) big important problems before globalization or automation?
- petra 8y ago
  It depends how far back we're talking about, but sure. Before the industrial revolution, most people made food. That's important. After the industrial revolution, but before ww2,the standard of living was low, so most manufactured goods we're pretty important - be it a car, a fridge, a pot, etc - but maybe less important than food. Afterwards, came consumerism, with a lot of low value stuff. So it seems that with time, many people do less significant things at work.

seibelj 8y ago

I’m sorry that this is your world view, because it is deeply flawed and focusing on such cynicism leads to depression. Most of HN lives in a tech bubble where everyone is focused on building semi-useless software like you describe. However the majority of society still does “normal” things like construction, manufacturing, sales, etc. and some sort of fundamental reorganizing of society on non-market principles doesn’t change that someone needs to maintain our physical infrastructure and keep the lights on. The economy is not a zero-sum game. If I make more money there is not someone else losing. The more jobs there are, the more needs fulfilled, the more services provided the better it is for everyone as more money moves around. It’s not on someone else to tell me what I should and should not want. If I desire it and a company provides it for a price, it doesn’t matter that the smart refrigerator is a waste in your vision. The market demands, and entrepreneurs provide.

petra 8y ago
>> It’s not on someone else to tell me what I should and should not want. That's true. >> If I desire it and a company provides it for a price, it doesn’t matter that the smart refrigerator is a waste in your vision. People are not good at knowing(or at least acting) on what will make them deeply happy, happier over the longer term, or even just happy. Psychological research tells us that. Add to that the power of advertising, so yes, people do want many things of little value.
- seibelj 8y ago
  I’d rather trust individuals to make their own purchasing decisions, and let the market experiment and figure out what is best, than reorganize society on non-market principles and let a committee determine what people should and should not want. Research may state that no one knows what will make themselves happy, but isn’t that one of life’s challenges? Finding happiness and purpose? I don’t need an academic paper to tell me happiness is difficult to attain.
  - petra 8y ago
    >> Research may state that no one knows what will make themselves happy, but isn’t that one of life’s challenges? Sure. But if people don't really know what makes them happy, maybe they'll buy a lot of useless stuff ?

rogerkirkness 8y ago

Certainly someone who thinks the economy is zero sum is a terrible candidate for "more efficient reorganization of society."

kristianc 8y ago

> Some win, others lose, but the status quo is that we are sweating from work in order to live in a world with smart refrigerators, automatic garage doors and pointless baby toys. Where do you draw the line as to what is frivolous or not? Technology in the kitchen and the Pill enabled women to go to work and to delay childbirth to a time of their choosing. More to the point, who are you to decide on where the line is?

MR4D 8y ago

You’re correct, but for reasons different than you may think. Economies tend not to be zero sum, but they do float thru it. Here’s what I mean: As a whole, economies either need capital (countries like Mexico) or produce excess capital (the US). Ignore that hey are neighbors here, that’s just a coincidence. Countries that produce excess capital are not zero-sum. Countries that need capital can actually be zero or negative sum. However, what you’ve seen over the last couple decades is an aging demographic curve that had shifted the population for producers to spenders over time. When you retire, you become a spender (you are no longer producing capital, but are spending it). As a result of this shift, many of the countries we think about as developed, are stagnating, and that looks like a zero sum situation. It may be, but it is only temporary- although temporary might last up to 3 or 4 decades. For a quick reference, Japan is the most obvious example here, dealing with fundamental stagnation. Germany is about to hit that too (they probably already have, but it usually takes a few years for the everyday economist to have the documentation to call it as such). China will follow a couple years later. The US has some of the same. Gen X is smaller than the baby boomers. As such, it’s hard for the generation to pay for the retirement of the previous generation. Hopefully Millenials will be productive enough soon enough to offset this.