Comment by vkou
1 day ago
> No-growth society: only way to acquire wealth is to take it from someone else
Wealth is created by work. In any society, be it growth or no-growth, you can create and acquire wealth by working. (Not necessarily for a wage. Working for yourself also creates wealth. Every time you make yourself dinner, or patch a torn pant leg, or change your car's oil, you are creating wealth.)
The problem is that non-working parasites (investors, rent-seekers, warlords) can't acquire wealth in a no-growth society without taking it from someone else.[1] (Because in a no-growth society, investing on the net is ~zero-returns, ~zero-value.)
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[1] They take it from someone else in a growth society, too, but a person who works and loses half their productive surplus to a rent seeker is still getting the benefits of growth. In a no-growth society, the rent-seeker's gain is 100% someone else's net loss.
Why this focus? Rent-seekers aren't anywhere near the biggest group of non-working people. Not in money and certainly not in number. And if you include non-productive then you have to add the whole government too (because the government does work, but not for wealth production, not saying it's not necessary, but in your model, it's not wealth production)