[xocyabencl]

Sports is a zero-sum game. Productive labor is not. The mathematician Paul Erdos used amphetamines to make many major breakthroughs. This was a great benefit for society, regardless of whether he perhaps took a professorship that some less productive mathematician would otherwise have obtained.

[Analemma_]

Promotions, and the salary/opportunity increases that come with them, absolutely are a zero-sum game. I’m a little baffled that anyone could think otherwise, actually.

[fragmede]

Assuming the company is doing well, financially, it's not zero-sum if there's enough money for everyone to get a salary increase.

[emodendroket]

How does that work out for cost centers?

[emodendroket]

There is a pretty limited set of fields of endeavor where you could make this argument without it being ridiculous on its face.

[xocyabencl]

While many industries have an element of zero-sum competition, that's not the default. Whether you're designing a car, doing a surgery, giving a haircut, cooking a hamburger, etc. you are giving something of value to your customers.

[Analemma_]

You’re describing retail jobs, where that might be true. But most white-collar workers never interact directly with customers. They have to demonstrate value to their boss, which does make it a zero-sum situation.

[xocyabencl]

I don't think any of the jobs I listed are retail. I went out of my way to include a variety of industries, including knowledge work. "Demonstrating value to your boss" could include zero-sum bullshit or actual production. As a programmer, I've done both kinds of work.

[emodendroket]

Even assuming (optimistically) that an exceptionally good hair stylist could somehow... uh, I don't know, be so good that they can hire more stylists? Assuming there's space?... it's pretty rare to have, say, multiple heads of the same department.

[xocyabencl]

You could cut more people's hair by getting it done faster, or do a better job cutting each person's hair. The point is that jobs where productivity improvement is possible are very common. Economically, productivity and technology are equivalent, and are the basis for prosperity. Productivity is not, in general, zero-sum.

[emodendroket]

The post uses accounting, which, well, maybe it's a different story if we're talking about complicated tax schemes that can save a lot of money, but in general I think we can say that if the workers are more productive fewer rather than more are needed.

[xocyabencl]

More productivity allows the work to get done with fewer workers, which is generally a good thing in normal economic conditions.