[fallingfrog]

"Back then, wealth mostly came from land grabs, tax farming, and debt slavery. The rich were rich because the poor were poor."

With all due respect my friend. That is 100% how it still works right now. That is how it has always worked. The reason you think otherwise is because you are not poor.

[louison11]

If it's always been this way, can you explain why most people today live in far greater conditions than 2000 years ago, or even 100 years ago? Or the dramatically declining global extreme poverty rate during that same period? If being rich always meant you took it from the poor, then you'd never have any improvement for anyone that does not result in worsening for someone else, mathematically.

It seems to me economic growth is the proof that money is not a zero-sum game, and that one can create value, that creates jobs, opportunities and a betterment in life across the board. A tide that lifts all boats.

You can validate that by looking at world economies. The countries with no innovation/entrepreneurship aren't better off for having less people building wealth: everybody is just poorer. In contrast, more capitalist wealth-oriented economies tend to create more opportunities.

[p_v_doom]

Most of the greater conditions that people experience today have been the result of markedly pro-social discoveries and forces in medicine, agriculture etc. Likewise the rights and comforts we have are largely driven by a) colonization that makes those of us in the West more comfy b) violent labor movements and revolutions in the 20th cnetury, that means we get stuff like free healthcare, education and the like in more civilized places of the world. There are no such countries with no innovation/enterpreneurship, its just countries with more material capabilities to enable these, and countries with less, and a big reason for this discrepancy is point a above.

None of this has much to do with economic growth, economic growth is an artificial construct on top of the material reality, used to justify a specific way of viewing the economy and the way things are structured.