A zero-sum game?
Published Wed, Nov 9 2011 5:50 AM
In a zero-sum economy if the rich can only get richer by making the poor poorer, then the OWS crowd is right. This assumes either that there is a fixed amount of property and or money, or that we are all nothing but consumers.
But - what IS property? And is there only a fixed amount of it?
I'm writing this note on an electronic device. I consider this device to be my property. You are reading this note with the help of another electronic device. Chances are that you either consider it to be your property or whomever you borrowed it from considers it theirs.
If there is only a fixed amount of property then these devices must have always existed, right? But of course that's absurd. Somebody, or some group of people made them, and in the process created property.
Sure the materials they are made of have always existed, if you break them down into their ultimate components. But those materials had no value as property until someone created a use for them, extracted them from the ground and then converted them into another form.
Steel doesn't just spontaneously form from raw ores. Left on its own it has a tendency to rust, turning from a useful material into a useless one. It is only through human effort that steel is created from raw materials. It is only through human effort and ingenuity that raw materials become property or wealth. People create property and they create wealth.
When the OWS crowd demands that "the rich" share "their wealth" with others they are demanding nothing less than the enslavement of those that produce to people who only want to consume without making an effort.
That's not liberty, nor is it responsible.
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T.F. Stern responded with:
 | I used to tell people I was into metal sculpture when referring to my ability to turn a key blank into a working key. I'd buy a box of keys for, let's say 25 cents per key. That key was turned into a useful product which I sold for $45. Is that wrong to make a profit from my abilities? The useful idiots protesting capitalism think it is. |
David responded with:
 | The OWS barbarians and their ilk seem determined to prove that theirs is not a "zero-sum" intelligence but one that is highly negative, measured in irrational numbers... |
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