We are turning communist

[Howell]

Capitalism (particularly the lassaiz-faire', market driven variety) in reality often mirrors the concept of a zero sum game, meaning that for there to be a 'winner' there must be a 'loser'.

I do not have time right now to respond to the rest of your post but I do disagree with your common assertion that market-exchange is a zero-sum game.

Voluntary exchanges take place because people place different values on different things. If everyone ranked everything in the same way, there would be little reason to trade. Suppose that I am a dairy farmer. I have plenty of milk from my cows, but no money. I don’t need all that milk, but I do need to pay my bills. Thus I value money more than my milk. Let’s suppose that the opposite is true for you; you have plenty of money, but no milk. You therefore value milk more than your money. If we exchange your money for my milk, we both walk way from the transaction better off than when we started. We each exchanged something we valued less for something we valued more. We have both won; we have participated in a positive-sum game.

 

[Mercutio]

That's an overly simplistic economic model. You aren't the only dairy farmer; you have to compete with all the other dairy farmers, and one of you is going to value milk least and money most. That guy will satisfy as much of the demand for milk as he can, moreso than other milk-producers. If you value milk more than he does, you will have fewer transactions, less money and more excess milk; you've been locked out of selling your product by the forces of competion, because demand for milk at a given price is only so great.

In that situation, we have a market of a certain size and you have to compete against everyone else with the same product. There's only so much to go around, thus we're back to a zero-sum game.

 

[Howell]

Economics and non-zero-sum

Non-zero-sum situations are an important part of economic activity due to production, marginal utility and value-subjectivity. Most economic situations are non-zero-sum, since valuable goods and services can be created, destroyed, or badly allocated, and any of these will create a net gain or loss. One strategy for non-zero-sum games is tit for tat.

If a farmer succeeds in raising a bumper crop, he will benefit by being able to sell more food and make more money. The consumers he serves benefit as well, because there is more food to go around, so the price per unit of food will be lower. Other farmers who have not had such a good crop might suffer somewhat due to these lower prices, but this cost to other farmers may very well be less than the benefits enjoyed by everyone else, such that overall the bumper crop has created a net benefit. The same argument applies to other types of productive activity.

Trade is a non-zero-sum activity because all parties to a voluntary transaction believe that they will be better off after the trade than before, otherwise they would not participate. It is possible that they are mistaken in this belief, but experience suggests that people are more often than not able to judge correctly when a transaction would leave them better off, and thus persist in trading throughout their lives. It is not always the case that every participant will benefit equally. However, a trade is still a non-zero-sum situation whenever the result is a net gain, regardless of how evenly or unevenly that gain is distributed.

Lump of labour fallacyAn often cited example of a lump of labour fallacy is in economics, where one might assume that redistributing income to one person must mean taking it away from someone else. While this is modestly persuasive, economic activities can increase or reduce the amount of wealth in the world, making the economic 'game' non-zero-sum. The consequence is that we might be able to take $100 of your money, use it to economically create $1,000 of value in the world, and return $200 of value back to you--in that case, nobody loses anything.

 

[CougTek]

This has to do with the mentality of a poor person vs. the mentality of a rich person. If I give a poor person $10k, and give a rich person $10k, the poor person will piss the money away on beer, women, lotto tickets, a new big screen TV, and chrome rims for their car. The rich person on the other hand will invest the money. This is why the poor get poorer, and the rich get richer.

It is quite hard for me to refrain from throwing you a bunch of insults after having read the above. I'll just say that at best, you're an ignorant. You probably live in your buble and comfort yourself with those kind of simplistic thoughts.

I've known both being fairly wealthy and being quite poor and this had little to do with the way I used my money.

If the guy next door goes to work late, and does a piss poor job at factory X, and you go in early, and do a great job at factory X, but you both get the same amount of money, how long will it take before you do as poor of a job as the guy next door?

I lost a good job once because I was too performant compared to my co-workers and they conspired against me to have me fired. Stop talking through your ass, your vision is flawed. The cute little socio-economical models your dear teacher showed you are flat out wrong.

 

[Stereodude]

It is quite hard for me to refrain from throwing you a bunch of insults after having read the above. I'll just say that at best, you're an ignorant. You probably live in your buble and comfort yourself with those kind of simplistic thoughts.

I've known both being fairly wealthy and being quite poor and this had little to do with the way I used my money.

You proved my point. You're not a habitually poor person. You obviously are no longer poor, so you obviously were fiscally responsible enough to change your situation. The vast majority of people who are habitually poor are fiscally irresponsible and have themselves to blame for staying in the same situation their whole life.

 

[Bozo]

RE: Factory X

This happens all the time in union shops. Been there, done that. That's why I don't work in a union envirnment anymore.

Bozo :mrgrn: