[lmm]

> Why do they have to be ill-gotten gains? Someone could invest money they've earned through productive work.

Because your hypothetical was specifically about someone who doesn't do productive work?

> Suppose you have some money and you put it in some investment fund and then live off the earnings while having no real involvement with how the fund is managed. Meanwhile the businesses you invested in are off doing productive net-positive things with your money that wouldn't have been possible had you stuffed it in your mattress, while yielding you a positive return which is nonetheless smaller than the total amount of net good created by the business.

You're begging the question - why was it your money in the first place?

If it's value you've produced, yes you can partner with someone else to compound it. But if it's just privilege that you had, then you don't get any credit for allowing it to be used productively.

> The best you can say is that the returns are zero-sum, even if the act of investing is positive sum. But isn't that true of anything? If you get a raise, that's zero sum. Someone else would have had the money in the alternative.

If you do something that produces real value in the world then that's positive sum - if you turn some planks and nails into a table, that table is more valuable than the stuff that went into it, the world is better off.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Because your hypothetical was specifically about someone who doesn't do productive work?

That's anybody who has enough money that they don't have to work. It doesn't tell you anything about where they got it.

> You're begging the question - why was it your money in the first place?

What if you found it in the street? Would that affect whether or not the business you invest it in produces a net positive as a result?

> But if it's just privilege that you had, then you don't get any credit for allowing it to be used productively.

That doesn't seem right. You could have spent it on drugs and sex. Your choices matter.

> If you do something that produces real value in the world then that's positive sum - if you turn some planks and nails into a table, that table is more valuable than the stuff that went into it, the world is better off.

Suppose the planks are the status quo. You're getting paid $10/hour to make tables. Now you get a raise and get paid $12/hour to make tables, but you still only make exactly the same number of exactly the same tables as you did for $10/hour. The extra $2/hour is zero sum, isn't it? Why should you get it instead of the boss or the customer?

[lmm]

> What if you found it in the street? Would that affect whether or not the business you invest it in produces a net positive as a result?

Does finding a large amount of money in the street make someone more deserving that someone who found a smaller amount of money in the street?

> That doesn't seem right. You could have spent it on drugs and sex. Your choices matter.

So you put part of it back into circulation and kept the rest for yourself. You're still not doing any better than morally neutral.

> Suppose the planks are the status quo. You're getting paid $10/hour to make tables. Now you get a raise and get paid $12/hour to make tables, but you still only make exactly the same number of exactly the same tables as you did for $10/hour. The extra $2/hour is zero sum, isn't it?

Well where did the value that it corresponds to come from? (I assume you're not just talking about inflation, or labour being scarcer or anything like that - but in that case the raise won't have come from nowhere). If you're making better or more tables through your own skill, you've earned it. If the boss has made production work better or got better machines or something, maybe he's earned it. If it was previously just economic rent that the boss was extracting then yes it's zero sum because it was zero sum to start with.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Does finding a large amount of money in the street make someone more deserving that someone who found a smaller amount of money in the street?

Does being tall make someone more deserving of a basketball scholarship than someone born with different genetics?

> So you put part of it back into circulation and kept the rest for yourself. You're still not doing any better than morally neutral.

You're not giving it away, you're exchanging it for something that you consume. You're causing some chemist to make recreational drugs instead of medicine, or causing someone to do sex work when you could have paid someone to build housing. That's not morally neutral.

> Well where did the value that it corresponds to come from? (I assume you're not just talking about inflation, or labour being scarcer or anything like that - but in that case the raise won't have come from nowhere).

Inflation is boring because then the real value would be the same. Labor being scarcer, on the other hand, is a perfect example. Some new large employer moves into town and your boss gives you a raise rather than see you quit and have to pay retraining costs for someone they'd still have to pay the extra $2 to. You haven't done anything different, why do you "deserve" any more money?

> If it was previously just economic rent that the boss was extracting then yes it's zero sum because it was zero sum to start with.

Suppose the boss was getting it, but as compensation for labor rather than economic rent. The boss found a source for the wood and lined up customers and all of that but now has to pay you more out of his own pocket because local labor demand increased while demand for tables is the same because they're sold into a national market.

And yet, even by paying you the extra $2, the boss is still receiving a net benefit from operating the business, as were you when you were working for the original wage. Changing the amount is zero sum, but the activity it's compensating isn't, so how do you want to call it?

[lmm]

> Does being tall make someone more deserving of a basketball scholarship than someone born with different genetics?

If being taller leads to better basketball that more people will enjoy watching, yes. I'm not convinced that sports leagues aren't a zero-sum blight, but certainly someone whose fortunate genetics mean they're genuinely producing more for society (e.g. a stronger porter who carries more stuff further, or a more intelligent scientist who does better research, or a singer with a beautiful voice who is more rewarding to listen to) deserves to reap at least some of the fruits of that.

> Labor being scarcer, on the other hand, is a perfect example. Some new large employer moves into town and your boss gives you a raise rather than see you quit and have to pay retraining costs for someone they'd still have to pay the extra $2 to. You haven't done anything different, why do you "deserve" any more money?

Because what you're doing - and it's something you're actually doing, not something you happen to be holding - is worth more. The price of labour is going up because the amount of real-world value produced per hour of labour is going up.

> And yet, even by paying you the extra $2, the boss is still receiving a net benefit from operating the business, as were you when you were working for the original wage. Changing the amount is zero sum, but the activity it's compensating isn't, so how do you want to call it?

Either the value produced is being divided fairly among those who are producing it, or it isn't. Someone who is producing value might certainly be getting paid more (or more commonly less) than they are fairly earning, and that part is zero-sum. But if someone isn't producing value, then necessarily all of their income is from the zero-sum part.

(Obviously if we zoom in on the details there's a spectrum - some labourers earn more than they should through rentiering aspects, and even those who live large off of economic rents are likely doing some minimal amount of productive labour. But I suspect the distribution is pretty bimodal)