Zero-Sum Reasoning

[HowardRoarkSpaceDetective]

In discussing economics (broadly), there's always that famous zero-sum vs. positive-sum dichotomy (negative-sum, too, but it's not as relevant to free-market operations). I'm having trouble getting my mind around the proper way of thinking about where each stops and starts. Obviously, leftism exaggerates the zero-sum aspects of capitalism, but it would also be wrong to say that there are no zero-sum games in capitalism whatsoever. In terms of wealth in the long-term, I agree with Rand that "there are no conflicts of interest between rational men." However, it seems to me inaccurate to say that competition isn't zero-sum in the short term. Am I wrong in believing that?

I ask because I came across a statement in OPAR that I'm not sure how to think about:

"It is perfectly just, Rawls maintains, for society to sacrifice the me of intelligence and creative ability - to seize their products and redistribute them to the world's losers - because, he says, nobody worked to achieve his own gray matter..."

Is he being genuine here when he uses the word "losers", or is he trying to make a point by accusing Rawls of conceptualizing ethics as a matter of winners and losers? If he is being genuine, why? Isn't that exactly the wrong mindset?

 

BONUS: There seem to be zero-sum games that don't necessarily result in totally positive-sum outcomes. For example, I work at a catering service. I don't complain about it, but I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed it. Taking pride in my work is also difficult because I spend about half my time standing still and watching guests, often doing absolutely nothing. Of course, this is the case for many jobs, but there is something a little more disappointing when you're "the help". Most of my coworkers are latino, and while I would disagree with many minorities about the nature or cause of their social status, I would understand if those like my coworkers were frustrated. They're bilingual and hard-working but not found as often in high-paying positions. Yesterday, we catered a graduation luncheon for some MBA students. It was tough for me because I spent much of the time being reminded that I wish I had taken my college years more seriously. Of course, being a seen-but-not-heard buffet-monkey for these successful people really drove the point home. To me, this seems like a good example of a persistent zero-sum scenario. Of course, service industry and manual labor jobs are FAR cushier than they were a hundred or two hundred years ago, but the "server" vs. "served" thing never seems to go away, no matter how rational the society. What do you guys think?

[KyaryPamyu]

On 5/2/2023 at 10:33 PM, HowardRoarkSpaceDetective said:

I ask because I came across a statement in OPAR that I'm not sure how to think about:

"It is perfectly just, Rawls maintains, for society. . ."

I found something about that statement in a review of OPAR. It appears in the January 1992 issue of Liberty Magazine (page 68):

"Peikoff's approach is slapdash. He hardly ever reports anyone else's position accurately. Here, for example, is his account of an argument by Rawls:

It is perfectly just, Rawls maintains, for society to sacrifice the men of intelligence and creative ability - to seize their products and redistribute them to the world's losers - because, he says, nobody worked to achieve his own gray matter; nobody earned his brain, which is a mere gift from nature. (l08)

Peikoff refutes "this monstrous theory" by arguing that the notion of earning one's brain is illegitimate. He gives no page citation, and nowhere in Rawls is there any discussion of working to earn one's brain, but I presume Peikoff is referring to II:17 of A Theory of Justice (l00-08). Here Rawls says: ''No one deserves his greater natural capacity nor merits a more favorable starting place in society" (Rawls, 102), which is obviousIy true for those of us who reject reincarnation. Rawls is here summarizing an argument whose conclusion he rejects, and he quickly goes on to say that the distribution of natural talents does not rule out the possibility of justice: "The natural distribution is neither just nor unjust; nor is it unjust that people are born into society at some particular position. These are simply natural facts" (ibid.). Rawls defends a just society in which there are differences in wealth and income due to birth and other causes. He does also favor some government redistribution, but not for reasons recognizably like those described by Peikoff.

Peikoff cannot seem to cite anyone without misrepresenting them. He says that Spencer defended capitalism as survival of the fittest, and drew this idea from Darwin's theory of evolution (Peikoff, 356). He even misrepresents the Munich agreement of 1938 (110), saying that Hitler was demanding Czechoslovakia (instead of a German part of Czechoslovakia whose population wanted to join Germany). To commit one outrageous howler may be put down to misfortune. To cram so many into one book looks like undue carelessness."

[tadmjones]

There are times when using 'following to its logical conclusion'- type reasoning drops its own context and falls into reductio ad absurdum and misapplies conclusions.

[necrovore]

2 hours ago, KyaryPamyu said:

nowhere in Rawls is there any discussion of working to earn one's brain

I think that is part of Peikoff's point, that Rawls ignores the idea of "working to earn one's brain" precisely because it would reveal how ridiculous it is to say that someone's brain is "unearned" (as opposed to "earned").

So I suppose this whole thing is like, Peikoff says "Philosopher A says X, but the implication of X is Y, and Y is clearly wrong, so X must be wrong," and somebody replies, "Philosopher A never said Y, so Peikoff is misrepresenting him."

Edited June 6 by necrovore

[KyaryPamyu]

1 hour ago, necrovore said:

I think that is part of Peikoff's point

Rawls brings up the argument that "'No one deserves his greater natural capacity" only in order to reject its conclusion, and to show that this argument is, in fact, irrelevant to justice. Apparently, this totally escaped Peikoff, a fact which does not reflect well on his professionalism, and is what the review is criticizing.

[necrovore]

5 hours ago, KyaryPamyu said:

Rawls brings up the argument that "'No one deserves his greater natural capacity" only in order to reject its conclusion, and to show that this argument is, in fact, irrelevant to justice. Apparently, this totally escaped Peikoff, a fact which does not reflect well on his professionalism, and is what the review is criticizing.

I suppose that is possible, but would be surprising.

When I was in elementary school I had some teachers who basically told me that having as much intelligence as I had at that age was "morally wrong," which lines up with what Peikoff says Rawls was saying.

If this is a misinterpretation of Rawls, it must have been a fairly common one, and not Peikoff's alone. Rawls was popular at the time and Peikoff was not. I consider it likely that these teachers had themselves learned from theoreticians who were familiar with Rawls, but it is highly unlikely that they got a mischaracterization of Rawls from Peikoff. This was before the OPAR book had come out.

[HowardRoarkSpaceDetective]

I wouldn't be surprised if Piekoff was "citing" an implication of Rawls's argument rather than an point made explicitly in it. I've noticed that a lot in my time studying Objectivism. Rand of Piekoff will accuse a philosopher or philosophy of something that seems totally outrageous, but a few months later I'll come to same conclusion on my own.

What Piekoff accuses Rawls of seems to be pretty consistent with the "veil of ignorance" concept as well as how most people, including myself at one time, construe the notion of cosmic justice. No one should be luckier than anyone else, this argues. I think Piekoff accurately identifies the locus of egalitarianism. It's tantamount to saying that no one earned their free will, or even their being born. It's social metaphysics through and through.

[Easy Truth]

On 5/2/2023 at 12:33 PM, HowardRoarkSpaceDetective said:

Obviously, leftism exaggerates the zero-sum aspects of capitalism, but it would also be wrong to say that there are no zero-sum games in capitalism whatsoever. In terms of wealth in the long-term, I agree with Rand that "there are no conflicts of interest between rational men." However, it seems to me inaccurate to say that competition isn't zero-sum in the short term. Am I wrong in believing that?

The leftist conclusion is that the loser of the competition should be compensated by the winner. At its core is the idea that "the universe" i.e. "or an intelligent God" is unjust and that we as a "civilized" society must redress it i.e. redistribute wealth. With that logic, wealth in this "intelligently caused" universe has been unjustly distributed. That the universe is not making everyone have the same talents and opportunities.

So they are fighting for justice. The notion that cause and effect is what defines justice and that you are not responsible for what you did not cause is not relevant to them. Where they go with it is that the system is corrupt, what "is" is corrupt, that "nature" is corrupt, and that they should compensate the ones who have been injured by the corruption.

That is why the idea of "natural law" is not significant to them.

The zero-sum game is part of a competition. There are winners and losers in voting or business. To claim that Capitalism has no zero-sum game is a losing argument. Capitalism eliminates/attempts to eliminate a different kind of competition which is violence. If Rand had specified violent conflict when saying there would be no conflict, there would have not been such disagreement about the statement.

The zero-sum game can never be eliminated in its context. You have games that are fun or life-enhancing and you have games that are the opposite. Like a chess game vs. a war. There are winners and losers in both. At the core of their argument is that it can be eliminated which should be shown to be absurd and impossible. It is the environment around it that is what turns the game into a win-win game.

[HowardRoarkSpaceDetective]

1 hour ago, Easy Truth said:

It is the environment around it that is what turns the game into a win-win game.

Right, so one attribute of capitalist competition is that, in the long run, it is win-win. A chess game is win-win if you still enjoy it despite losing. I can't think of any contexts in which violent competition could be win-win. I just find this point difficult to argue with egalitarians. That's not only because they consider win-lose competitions acceptable if the bigger guy loses but also because it's there are matters of principle involved. For example, you may benefit very little from the marginal productivity that a better job candidate adds relative to you, compared with the benefit you'd have gotten from getting the job. But if affirmative action is legitimate, it's legitimate to use against you as well. Of course, then the leftist argues that they're okay with that, and perhaps they go from there to realizing that they are making a virtue of self-sacrifice. But probably not.

[Easy Truth]

4 hours ago, HowardRoarkSpaceDetective said:

Right, so one attribute of capitalist competition is that, in the long run, it is win-win. A chess game is win-win if you still enjoy it despite losing. I can't think of any contexts in which violent competition could be win-win.

Then in theory they would understand that avoidance of violent competition is a win-win situation, everyone wins. They understand the violence issue. What they won't accept and reasonably so is the glorious promise that there won't be winners and losers in a Capitalist society. That is what we come across as saying. The fact is, the less productive people will be the losers in economic competition. As the loafers and lazy people may win in an altruistic society. What they won't accept is that this is "just", it is "justified" "proper" or "moral". In such a society, the ones with the better products would be the winners and so would the consumers because they get the best possible product.

They will bring up the "poor" and the "infirm" and your duty to your fellow man. They will have no principle that justifies such an obligation, although Rawls cleverly does. With his veil idea, he argues that it is to your benefit because you could become weak and infirm and you'd be protected. It's the promise of a MANDATED riskless environment, a sort of win-win proposition in itself. We'll force you to hedge your bets because it's demonstrably good for you.

[HowardRoarkSpaceDetective]

2 hours ago, Easy Truth said:

We'll force you to hedge your bets because it's demonstrably good for you.

Yeah so this speaks to what Rand says about not expecting disaster. Rawls expects disaster. This, I suppose, is the root of the disdain for merit. It's utterly foreign to people that a system that rewards merit has benefits. They forget that reality doesn't reward equality.

[Doug Morris]

On 5/2/2023 at 3:33 PM, HowardRoarkSpaceDetective said:

There seem to be zero-sum games that don't necessarily result in totally positive-sum outcomes. For example, I work at a catering service. I don't complain about it, but I'd be lying if I said I enjoyed it. Taking pride in my work is also difficult because I spend about half my time standing still and watching guests, often doing absolutely nothing. Of course, this is the case for many jobs, but there is something a little more disappointing when you're "the help". Most of my coworkers are latino, and while I would disagree with many minorities about the nature or cause of their social status, I would understand if those like my coworkers were frustrated. They're bilingual and hard-working but not found as often in high-paying positions. Yesterday, we catered a graduation luncheon for some MBA students. It was tough for me because I spent much of the time being reminded that I wish I had taken my college years more seriously. Of course, being a seen-but-not-heard buffet-monkey for these successful people really drove the point home. To me, this seems like a good example of a persistent zero-sum scenario. Of course, service industry and manual labor jobs are FAR cushier than they were a hundred or two hundred years ago, but the "server" vs. "served" thing never seems to go away, no matter how rational the society.

A zero-sum game is one where whatever one person gains, another loses.  The gains and losses, summed across all participants, net out to zero.

You and your coworkers must be getting a net gain from your catering job or you wouldn't stay in the job.  The guests, their organizers, and your bosses are also getting a net gain.  Everyone gains, nobody loses.  The situation is positive sum, and not only that, but positive for each participant.

When you compare your net gain from the catering job to what you could have gained if you had taken your college years more seriously, the former may seem very small, and difficult to distinguish from zero.  But it is positive, not zero.  

Everyone who does productive work from which other people benefit because of market exchange is a "server".  Everyone who benefits from the productive work of others is "served".  There is nothing wrong with this.

 

[EC]

1 hour ago, Doug Morris said:

A zero-sum game is one where whatever one person gains, another loses.  The gains and losses, summed across all participants, net out to zero.

You and your coworkers must be getting a net gain from your catering job or you wouldn't stay in the job.  The guests, their organizers, and your bosses are also getting a net gain.  Everyone gains, nobody loses.  The situation is positive sum, and not only that, but positive for each participant.

When you compare your net gain from the catering job to what you could have gained if you had taken your college years more seriously, the former may seem very small, and difficult to distinguish from zero.  But it is positive, not zero.  

Everyone who does productive work from which other people benefit because of market exchange is a "server".  Everyone who benefits from the productive work of others is "served".  There is nothing wrong with this.

 

Which is a restatement of the principle that in value for value trade done under proper principles everyone gains and nobody loses.

[The Laws of Biology]

1. To me, it seems logical and empirically accurate to compare our lives on earth to the lives of astronauts on a spaceship travelling through space, especially if we add the proviso that the astronauts are not able to extract material resources from whatever planets, meteors, or asteroids then may happen to come near to. 
2. And so, the only material resources are what they start their space travels with. And the only energy resources they would have would be whatever they left with, plus whatever they can collect from the radiated light energy of nearby stars.
3. In this analogy, I think it is undeniable that there are limited resources.
4. It is true that human brains can and will devise ways to extend the usefulness of the limited resources aboard this spaceship.
5. But this innovation potential is not unlimited.
6. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that the extension of the usefulness of the limited resources will be shared with all the astronauts on the spaceship. A power elite could at any time use force or deception to hoard or consume an unequal quantum of resources for themselves.
7. A power elite group on the spaceship could even use force or deception to eject some of the astronauts from the spaceship and into the deadly coldness of space, in order to have more resources for this power elite to use on themselves.
8. From this analogy, it seems to me to be logical and empirically correct to conclude that scarcity (as discussed generally in the field of economics and in the field of evolutionary biology) is always a large factor in the dynamics of the lives of human beings and all other biological life forms.
9. My individual powers of observing and reasoning, limited as they are, leads me to join with those who say that there is a Law of Scarcity that operates at all times among biological beings (humans included). The Law of Scarcity is a natural law and cannot be overcome just as laws of physics cannot be defeated or erased (e.g., the law of gravity).
10. The Law of Scarcity is not good news or happy news. But it does seem to be an inescapable part of reality.

Edited June 17 by The Laws of Biology
Clarification added

[Doug Morris]

5 hours ago, The Laws of Biology said:

• My individual powers of observing and reasoning, limited as they are, leads me to join with those who say that there is a Law of Scarcity that operates at all times among biological beings (humans included). The Law of Scarcity is a natural law and cannot be overcome just as laws of physics cannot be defeated or erased (e.g., the law of gravity).
• The Law of Scarcity is not good news or happy news. But it does seem to be an inescapable part of reality.

Can you state the Law of Scarcity?

 

[The Laws of Biology]

• I am discussing "scarcity" as that concept is discussed generally in the field of economics and in the field of evolutionary biology.
• The argument against the inescapable reality of the law of scarcity in human affairs that I see most often is that human beings are exceptional and are profoundly different from the lower biological life forms. 
• This conclusion about exceptional nature of human beings is generally based on the human abilities regarding:
  • language
  • reasoning
  • logic
  • philosophy
    • (As an aside, I find it noteworthy that both Capitalist philosophies and Socialist philosophies deny the inescapable reality of the law of scarcity in human affairs.)
  • science
  • technology
  • communication and communion with a deity, angels, demons, or a conscious cosmos (for religious or spiritual people only)
• I think it best to assume that the Law of Scarcity in human affairs can be perpetually overcome, and to hold this assumption or premise on the basis of either a Capitalist philosophy or a Socialist philosophy, since, if the Law of Scarcity cannot be overcome, then we are all doomed. And there's no value in going around thinking we are all doomed.
• This solution, I realize, is more pragmatic than idealistic. But it is the best that I, as an individual reasoner and observer, can come up with for the time being. I think that Equality 7-2521 would approve of my striving to engage in individual reasoning and observing.

Edited June 18 by The Laws of Biology
Added clarification

[The Laws of Biology]

• I just happened to see a quote from Ayn Rand that I think recognizes the operation, in a specific domain and context, of the Law of Scarcity:
  • “A man’s actions did not have to be performed, but, once performed, they are facts of reality. The same is true of a man’s character: he did not have to make the choices he made, but, once he has formed his character, it is a fact, and it is his personal identity. (Man’s volition gives him great, but not unlimited, latitude to change his character; if he does, the change becomes a fact.)” (Quotation is from Ayn Rand's book, "Philosophy: Who Needs It?")
• This could be contrasted with Christian philosophy, which holds that there is the possibility, through the unlimited power of God, of an unlimited reform of personal character at any time during mortal life.  In other words, under Christian philosophy, it is never too late (as long as you are alive) to become a perfect human being. Even a deathbed conversion or confession can make one perfect, according to Christian philosophy.

Edited June 18 by The Laws of Biology
Added clarification

[Doug Morris]

I looked up law of scarcity.  The first definition I found is 

If what we desire “appears” to be in limited supply, the perception of its value increases significantly.

This doesn't seem to be what you are talking about.

The second definition I found is

 economic resources — land, labor, capital, and talent — are limited, not infinite.

This may be what you are talking about.  Why is this "not good news or happy news."?  How does it doom us all if it cannot be overcome?  What would it mean to overcome it?

There was another definition that equated it with the law of supply and demand.