Making Money Is Not A Zero Sum Game

Most people think of creating wealth as a zero sum game.

That would be like playing Monopoly with only $500.00 dollars available for all players. If someone gains -someone else must have lost.

If you think about it, there is a great deal more wealth in the world today than there was a thousand years ago. Even calculated by toilets per capita - there are more than just two hundred years ago - and today they are inside.

I am not talking the funny money created by governments - and the inflation they create as a tax that hurts those on fixed incomes. Governments will keep printing more money until no one accepts it.

Some forms of managing money are a zero sum game. A venture into the commodities markets is entering a zero sum game. You have a contract - if you win they lose, if they win you lose - less a bit of vigorish from both of you for the facilitators.

If you start a business however, you can create products and generate wealth that does not take from others. In fact as Bastiat said:

"By virtue of exchange, one man's prosperity is beneficial to all others."

A growing capitalist tide can raise all boats.

Many in fact talk about the raising gap between the rich and the poor. That is happening - but far more important is the fact that under capitalism the poor are also raised. There are a lot of poor. In a post-capitalist country like the United States the status of the poor steadily increased, until that was stopped by an increase in government instead.

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery." - Winston Churchill

When a government takes money out of circulation for their own purpose it is not available for building general wealth. In fact we are now discovering that wealth can shrink as the various levels of government add their weight to the economy.

Shrinking wealth is not zero sum - it is also not pleasant.

If you don't have any money there are a lot of things you will not be able to do.

However if you create a lot of wealth, you can help yourself, your family, people that are important to you, and society at large.

If you don't have money you will have to hope others will help you.

There are many ways to create wealth, use them to help yourself and others.

"The risks and rewards for you from creative entrepreneurship are greater, and of far more value to society, than illusions of security that enslave a human cog in a social machine." - Allan Wallace

enjoy life - live long and prosper

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