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Someone having money doesn't preclude someone else in the economy from CREATING VALUE. Hacker News is a site filled with people who understand that it's possib
by pjschlic 14y ago
Someone having money doesn't preclude someone else in the economy from CREATING VALUE. Hacker News is a site filled with people who understand that it's possible to create value out of nothing. Your scenario is impossible, but assuming someone acquired all of X currency and refused to let anyone else have any, that currency is effectively nonexistent - currencies are only worth what they can be exchanged for. People would trade using something else.
- anigbrowl 14y agoPeople would, but that wouldn't alleviate the overarching economic failure of excess concentration. Look at places like North Korea; there's an underground economy, but virtually all economic power is vested in the state, with dreadful effects for the population at large. Well, you say, that's not a free society in political terms; but preservation of ownership is essentially a political good. Indeed, it's one with a high cost for the American economy: http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~bowles/GarrisonAmerica2007.pdf http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~bowles/GarrisonAmerica2007.pdf