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It is zero sum: there are finite goods and services in the world, and we're all competing for them. There are losers and winners. "That's just zero sum thinkin

• Manuel_D 2y ago
  No, goods and services are not finite. This is just patently false. How many automobiles existed in 1800? How many jey liners existed in 1900? How many smartphones existed in 1950? The pool of goods grows in absolute terms. It's not just goods, services too grow in absolute terms. We invented radio in 1900 (ish) and introduced a wholly novel set of services. Before photography, in order to get one's likeness recorded you had to sit for a portrait painter. After practical photography was developed, portraits became much more accessible. I could go on. Humanity is increasing the pool of goods and services in absolute terms all the time.
  • cool_dude85 2y ago
    Buddy. Are you really trying to say that there can exist infinite goods and services in a finite universe? Growing is not the same as infinite.
    • Manuel_D 2y ago
      Sure, it's finite in that it's can't grow with literally no limit: there's a fixed amount of mass an energy in the universe. But the above commenter states that goods and services are zero-sum, which is not true. Goods and services do grow in absolute terms. His whole thesis is that accumulation of wealth necessarily entails the depravation of others. This is not at all true: wealthy can and does grow in absolute terms.
      • dventimi 2y ago
        The above commenter is me and I say that goods and services are finite because they are. So what if there were fewer in the past and there will be more in the future. We live in the present and in the present goods and services are provided by people through labor which is finite at any given time. We're all competing: for housing, healthcare, and the political power to determine our material conditions. If wealth doesn't allow you to outcompete other people for those things then what the hell is it for?
        • Manuel_D 2y ago
          > The above commenter is me and I say that goods and services are finite because they are. So what if there were fewer in the past and there will be more in the future. What you're describing here is literally the opposite of zero-sum. The total set of goods and services in increasing. It directly contradicts your claim that the accumulation of wealth necessitates the deprivation of others.
          • dventimi 2y ago
            At any given time are there, or are there not, finite goods and services?
            • Manuel_D 2y ago
              At one given instant sure, but the key thing is that over time the collection of goods and services grows. Adam, Bob, and Charlie are all shipwrecked on an island. They divy up the ship's goods equally. One day, Charlie decides to build some furniture. Now he has more goods than Adam and Bob. Did he deprive others, to achieve his comparatively greater wealth? If you just looked at one snapshot of time, you'd see Charlie with more wealth than the others, though.
              • dventimi 2y ago
                > At one given instant sure [goods and services are finite] I'm glad we finally agree that wealth is finite. > the key thing is that over time the collection of goods and services grows. That's cold comfort for people who never live to see a time when they can compete for those goods and services.
                • Manuel_D 2y ago
                  > I'm glad we finally agree that wealth is finite. Wrong, wealth is not finite and it can be - and is - increased. Yes, the amount of wealth at Monday, 03-Jun-24 04:12:33 UTC is going to be finite, because that's a fixed point in time. This is just a pointless tangent, because in our world time is not frozen. In our reality, where time flows, wealth is not finite and is indeed grown in absolute terms. > That's cold comfort for people who never live to see a time when they can compete for those goods and services. Yes, people who lived in preindustrial societies saw more or less fixed living standards for generations. But fortunately for us, we live in one of the most economically dynamic points of in all of human history [1]. Your statement does ring true for most of human history, but not in our age. 1. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_GDP_per_capita_1500_to_2003.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:World_GDP_per_capita...
  • dventimi 2y ago
    If goods and services aren't finite then they must be infinite. If they're infinite then how can they be increasing?
    • roenxi 2y ago
      Because not all wealth exists in the present. It is like counting from 1 to 5 and concluding that the maximum size of an integer is finite because so far the count has only reached 5. It is not so, however. The maximum size of an integer is infinite even though any particular integer is finite.
      • dventimi 2y ago
        Not all people on Earth exist in the present, either. At any given time in the past there were fewer of them, and at any given time in the near future at least there probably will be more of them. Does that mean that the number of people on Earth is infinite? While you're thinking about that, think about this. You and I live in the present. Of what use is it to us in the present if there's more total wealth in some future long after we're gone?
        • dventimi 2y ago
          > Not all people on Earth exist in the present Correction: That should be, "Not all people on Earth who have existed in the past or will exist in the future exist in our present."
          • roenxi 2y ago
            The number of people is potentially infinite. It depends on unknowns like whether we can grow exponentially, what the progress of science looks like and whether the universe is finite.
            • dventimi 2y ago
              It's at this point that you're going to have to explain what you mean by "infinite".
  • dragonwriter 2y ago
    > No, goods and services are not finite Yes, they are. > Humanity is increasing the pool of goods and services in absolute terms all the time. The ever-increasing amount is still finite, at any given time and even aggregated over the entire history from the evolution of humanity to its inevitable extinction.
    • dventimi 2y ago
      The magical thinking in this thread is breathtaking to behold.
• slothtrop 2y ago
  Wealth is not zero sum. If it were we'd still be quibbling over sticks in caves. It is generated.
  • dventimi 2y ago
    That's technology, not wealth.
    • Manuel_D 2y ago
      What do you think wealth is? A big part of wealth generation is finding new technologies and applying them to build better things.
      • defrost 2y ago
        Is that how you'd describe the wealth of Bezos? Better shopping, or is it more about capturing shopping and taking a slice from all transactions?
      • dventimi 2y ago
        I think it's abundance in one's material conditions. That's not technology. Technology is knowledge. That's completely different.
        • Manuel_D 2y ago
          Technology is the application of knowledge. Often to improve one's material conditions. Even an average person in this day's age has amenities that nobody, not even the wealthiest noble, could have achieved in preindustrial eras. We have air conditioning, electricity, antibiotics, vaccines, antiseptic, and near-instant communication worldwide. Our material conditions have drastically improved. Wealth is not finite, not even remotely.
          • dventimi 2y ago
            I suspect these people do not have ready access to air conditioning, electricity, or even antibiotics, and they're not going to get it simply by appealing to "technology." https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview#1 https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/haiti/overview#1
• dragonwriter 2y ago
  > It is zero sum: there are finite goods and services in the world, and we're all competing for them. Zero-sum (or fixed-sum, since zero-sum strictly means the aggregate quantity is not only fixed and finite but actually zero) doesn't just mean the total is finite (which is obviously correct), it means that output is fixed and the choices made only affect distribution, not the quantity of goods and services that are produced and made available. This is not the case.
  • dventimi 2y ago
    Yeah but the material conditions of an individual's life are determined by the goods and services they have, not by the total amount of goods and services that exist in the world. Moreover, certain material conditions--safety from harm, freedom of expression, and the political power to maintain those things--absolutely do not increase in some global sense the way that economic output does. Consequently, it's the distribution of wealth that determines the quality of an individual's life, and that's what concerns me. So no, I don't give a fig if "total wealth" whatever that is is somehow going up in aggregate, not if it's not being shared more uniformly.
    • dragonwriter 2y ago
      > Yeah but the material conditions of an individual's life are determined by the goods and services they have, not by the total amount of goods and services that exist in the world. That's obviously why distribution matters as well as total production (or aggregate utility), but fixed-sum means that distribution is the only thing subject to change, and that for someone to gain someone else must lose equally. (There's also an argument that things get closer to fixed sum in utility terms if you first lift everyone out of extreme poverty, because relative wealth/deprivation becomes a much more significant source of utility/disutility than absolute wealth is of utility once you are beyond extreme poverty, but even there its much more complex than fixed sum.) > Moreover, certain material conditions--safety from harm, freedom of expression, and the political power to maintain those things--absolutely do not increase in some global sense the way that economic output does. They certainly don't increase in lockstep with economic output, either globally or locally, but neither are they fixed-sum, where for someone to have more someone else must have less in the same degree (except maybe "political power").