This kind of thinking is the root of most populist rhetoric - that money and wealth is zero sum and it just shifts hands.

This is false and a dangerous rabbit hole of an ideology to get into.

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customguy an hour ago | parent | next [-]

How is money not zero sum? I agree prosperity as such isn't, but money, land, other things are limited. And wealth is only wealth because not everybody else has as much, right? As in, it doesn't matter if you have a dollar and I have 100, or you have 1 trillion dollars and I have 100 trillion dollars, it's the same difference.

	▲	halperter an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I think that wealth is pretty much comparative, as you said, but I think that money (which I'm interpreting as an indentifier of worth, tell me if that's wrong) isn't zero sum. Price is (generally) proportional to value, measured in how much you stand to benefit by owning/selling/using an asset as compared to doing nothing. The physical dollar bill may have limited circulation at a moment in time, but value fluctuates. Supply up, value---and then price---down, assuming all other factors are constant. Value can be created and dissolve in weeks as it is intriniscally subjective---think fads and trends. One pair of jeans could be worth a couple hundred one day and be worthless the other. Thus, value and thus money is not zero sum.

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an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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goatlover 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Difficult argument to make with the huge increase in wealth disparity the last several decades.