If you work for free, you’re doing whoever you’re working for a favor.
Yes. Unless the other costs of letting you work there exceed the value you add. For example, if you actually damage something, waste other people’s time, or just if you occupy a chair in a very expensive and small space.
If you work for money but never spend it, you’re doing the world a favor.
Generally yes, unless the work has big negative externalities.
When you buy someone’s goods or services for their set price, you’re doing them a favor.
Yes.
The apparent paradox is that two things happen at the same time. People create value by cooperating. Also, people engage in a zero-sum competition for the created value.
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There is a simple story which says that if people only engage in mutually voluntary trade (also assuming perfect information, perfect rationality, et cetera—I said it was a story), the result is a net improvement for everyone.
Well, that story is not true (even under the unrealistic assumptions). It is a good approximation, on average—the societies where people engage in mutually voluntary trade (with sufficiently educated population, not too many scams, et cetera) are on average a nicer place to live than other societies.
And yet, it is possible for one person to get worse as a direct consequence of a mutually voluntary trade of everyone else. That’s because different people have different abilities. And if the only thing you can ever produce is X, and someone else starts producing large amounts of X and selling it very cheaply… you just lost the only thing that helped you survive in this system. For everyone else, getting more of X more cheaply is a good news. So, from a global perspective, this is a good news. You should feel happy for your fellow citizens as you slowly starve to death. Our society is build on stories like this… and it is much better than the alternatives where people starve to death without making everyone else happier as a side effect.
...back to the original story: Yes, by never spending the money you’re doing the world a favor, but by giving it to a specific person, you’re giving that person an advantage at the zero-sum part of the game.
Yes. Unless the other costs of letting you work there exceed the value you add. For example, if you actually damage something, waste other people’s time, or just if you occupy a chair in a very expensive and small space.
Generally yes, unless the work has big negative externalities.
Yes.
The apparent paradox is that two things happen at the same time. People create value by cooperating. Also, people engage in a zero-sum competition for the created value.
*
There is a simple story which says that if people only engage in mutually voluntary trade (also assuming perfect information, perfect rationality, et cetera—I said it was a story), the result is a net improvement for everyone.
Well, that story is not true (even under the unrealistic assumptions). It is a good approximation, on average—the societies where people engage in mutually voluntary trade (with sufficiently educated population, not too many scams, et cetera) are on average a nicer place to live than other societies.
And yet, it is possible for one person to get worse as a direct consequence of a mutually voluntary trade of everyone else. That’s because different people have different abilities. And if the only thing you can ever produce is X, and someone else starts producing large amounts of X and selling it very cheaply… you just lost the only thing that helped you survive in this system. For everyone else, getting more of X more cheaply is a good news. So, from a global perspective, this is a good news. You should feel happy for your fellow citizens as you slowly starve to death. Our society is build on stories like this… and it is much better than the alternatives where people starve to death without making everyone else happier as a side effect.
...back to the original story: Yes, by never spending the money you’re doing the world a favor, but by giving it to a specific person, you’re giving that person an advantage at the zero-sum part of the game.