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by brlittle 6687 days ago
"The fundamental problem with their Lego trading game (and the original Legotown) is that they assume capitalism involves a fixed amount of resources that can only be traded. In reality, the resources are constantly growing. If it was really a fixed-resource system, it would always end like Monopoly, with one person owning everything, or owning enough to always be in power at the least."

I'm confused. Are you arguing that resources in the "real world" are not finite? So we'll never run out of indium, oil, fresh water, fertile soil, etc? Because if you are, that's a fascinating viewpoint, and almost completely at odds with reality.

"Surely all the wealth creation done by startups is evidence of that."

Maybe, maybe not. A lot of the "wealth" created by startups exists nowhere but on paper.

1 comments

Yeah, looking back now I wish I had written the first paragraph with the word "wealth" instead of "resources." (Alas, the edit link has disappeared on me.) So please, when you see the word resources in my post, mentally substitute for me.

As for you second point, don't confuse money with wealth. Most startups have liquidation value (dollar value) only on paper, because there is no one to buy them, but the product they create represents wealth to someone, even if it's only one customer. If the startup doesn't create enough wealth for enough people, it will probably die, in which case it won't be creating new wealth anymore, but their product made someone's life better, even if only for a short time.