Does one have to subscribe to either a zero-sum view on economics or a non-zero sum view? Is it possible that zero-sum is a legitimate portrayal of economics as long as one doesn't view the pie from which slices are being divided by as being static? For instance, since a particular nation's economic nation is constantly producing and consuming, this suggests that pies are being eaten and created all the time. But, even if a new pie is bigger, or smaller, the question is, who is slicing the pie pieces? If portions are the same proportionate to the whole pie, then it would be a zero-sum game, given the fact that although it is a new pie, the slices given out are proportionately the same. Any thoughts?
True, a good explanation, one Bripat is to ignorant to understand
Wealth is a Zero-Sum Game
Conservative damagogues like Limbaugh have been able to convince the public that the huge incomes of the wealthiest Americans are irrelevant to those who make moderate-to-low incomes. They even suggest that the more money the wealthiest Americans make, the more wealth will trickle down to the lower classes.
If you've swallowed this line of conservative garbage, get ready to vomit. As all conservative economists know, and deny to the public that they know, wealth is a zero-sum game. That is true at both the front end—when income is divided up, and the back end—when it is spent.
The Front End of Zero-Sum: Dividing the Loot
There is only so much corporate income in a given year. The more of that income that is used to pay workers, the less profit the corporation makes. The less profit, the less the stock goes up. The less the stock goes up, the less the CEO and the investors make. It’s as simple as that. Profit equals income minus expenses. No more, no less. Subtract the right side of the equation from the left side and the answer is always zero. Hence the term, “zero-sum.”
The Zero-sum Nature of economics
WELL SAID!
Corporations exist to distribute gains to individuals after taxes, reinvestment, cost of goods sold, etc. Most corporations do not use stock as a means to create wealth or distribute gains. The reason for that is most companies are small ones or privately held. Companies are a convenient scapegoat for liberals to rail against, until you realize what most companies are.
The Top 0.1% Of The Nation Earn Half Of All Capital Gains
Income and wealth disparities become even more absurd if we look at the top 0.1% of the nation’s earners– rather than the more common 1%. The top 0.1%– about 315,000 individuals out of 315 million– are making about half of all capital gains on the sale of shares or property after 1 year; and these capital gains make up 60% of the income made by the Forbes 400.
The Top 0.1 Of The Nation Earn Half Of All Capital Gains - Forbes
Through size, corporations, once merely an efficient tool employed by individuals in the conduct of private business have become an institution-an institution which has brought such concentration of economic power that so-called private corporations are sometimes able to dominate the state. The typical business corporation of the last century, owned by a small group of individuals, managed by their owners, and limited in size by their private wealth, is being supplanted by huge concerns in which the lives of tens or hundreds of thousands of employees and the property of tens of hundreds of thousands of investors are subjected, through the corporate mechanism, to the control of a few men.
Ownership has been separated from control; and this separation has removed many of the checks which formerly operated to curb the misuse of wealth and power. And, as ownership of the shares is becoming continually more dispersed, the power which formerly accompanied ownership is becoming increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few... [and] coincident with the growth of these giant corporations, there has occurred a marked concentration of individual wealth; and that the resulting disparity in incomes is a major cause of the existing depression.
Louis Brandeis, SCOTUS
- Dissent, Liggett Co. v. Lee, 288 U.S. 517 (1933), at 565-67.
