Comment by Dylan16807
7 hours ago
The price, when between the seller's minimum and the buyer's maximum, is a zero sum game. So while this is definitely screwing with people, the seller gets paid more and the amount of suffering in the world shouldn't really change.
You are falling for the zero-sum fallacy and mixing categories on top of it.
Globally, wealth gets created, which leads to a positive-sum game, not a zero sum game.
On the other hand, if one quadrillionaire in a city owns all the money available in that said system except 100 currency units, the remaining 100 humans are in possession of exactly 1 currency unit. The suffering for the 100 humans is significantly higher for the 100 than for the one, even though it fulfils your premise of a balanced global suffering index.
Before the trade, the value for the seller and the buyer was zero. Whatever the trade involved, the moment the minimum of the seller gets hit, it becomes a positive-sum game.
If this would not be the case long-term rise of stocks would be impossible. That would mean a stock rise is a redistribution and you take it away from someone else . So, if the stock market were truly zero-sum, every currency unit earned would require someone else to have lost one.
I am not having zero sun fallacy. Please read what I said again. I said the exact price is zero sum within the bounds of the deal happening. The wealth creation is caused by the deal happening at all.
> if one quadrillionaire in a city owns all the money
That's a valid risk factor but on a random eBay purchase I think it's fair to say we have no idea if the purchaser or the seller gets more utility out of each dollar.