[orangecat]

you apparently haven't come to terms with the fact that capitalism is a zero sum endeavor

This is a ridiculous claim. Do we have the same amount of total wealth as we did a hundred or a thousand years ago, and the only difference is how it's distributed?

[int_19h]

It is still a zero-sum endeavor because all this new wealth didn't materialize out of thin air. It was created by people, and specifically by people doing productive work with their hands and their brains - which does not describe the suits on top, no matter how much they try to convince us otherwise. The reason why the latter end up with most of this newly produced wealth in their pockets is simply because they have access to a wide assortment of mechanisms to collect economic rent from the people who actually produce - this is the zero-sum part. The notion that, without the suits, the wealth wouldn't have been produced at all is nonsense.

[forgetfreeman]

This is a ridiculous response. Have we extracted more natural resources than we had a hundred or a thousand years ago? Are the biomes that our species utilize for foodstuffs more or less healthy than they were a century ago?

[wyre]

Sounds like you haven’t came to terms with it being zero sum either.

Zero-sum: adj, of, relating to, or being a situation (such as a game or relationship) in which a gain for one side entails a corresponding loss for the other side.

GDP can still increase, but doesn’t disprove capitalism isn’t zero-sum. If you haven’t been paying attention we are currently living in a period of the most wealth inequality in recent history.

[jnordwick]

> currently living in a period of the most wealth inequality in recent history.

Th feudal period would like a word with you.

[forgetfreeman]

Did the conversation slip into geologic timescales or something? Unless you're advancing the argument that modern day corporate structures bear some kind of significant relationship to feudalism the phrase was recent history. I'm fairly certain reasonable people wouldn't classify, for example, the War of the Roses as recent events.