Zero Sum Games

In a free economy everyone has the opportunity to get better because the economy is a non-zero-sum game.

Most people in developing nations would rather be poor in the U.S. than middle classed in their own countries. And it’s because the working poor have it better off here than do most people (except the ruling elite, of course) in developing nations.

Certainly the U.S. isn’t perfect, and it doesn’t have as free an economy as it could and should have, but its relative freedom allows for a positive-sum economy that makes it possible for all boats to rise. I don’t particularly care if other boats rise faster, either, as that sort of “fairness,” or egalitarianism, only pushes the economy toward increasing zero-sumness.

The point is, in a free economy, I am not hurt in any way, shape, or form if there are others who have more than I do, because they are not taking anything from me in a positive sum game. Their wealth does not impoverish me. To complain about someone else’s wealth is like complaining about someone else being ethical, as though their being good somehow prevented me from being good. The first attitude resulted in the gulag, and the second attitude resulted in the attacks by the Islamic terrorists on 9-11.

The bottom line is that the belief in a zero-sum world has resulted in a lot of deaths, and will continue to do so until we recognize that the world isn’t a zero-sum game, and never has been, and never will be.

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