How Chances at Economic Equality Sum Zero

     According to Duke University, a so-called zero-sum game is as follows: "a type of game wherein one player can gain only at the expense of another player". This is a principle that is generally applicable to anything with finite resources, but this game theory hypothesis has a presence in economics. It is something that many wish for and even hippies preached, and that is equality of all people.

    A hope like this is futile.

    Don't get me wrong. I would like to see a world where all people have a chance to live and prosper and not have it be dependent upon their circumstances. Nonetheless, this kind of event will never occur so as long as people are attached to wealth, status, and comfort. As you can see, it has to be a change in collective culture and perhaps a suppression of natural human tendencies. A bunch of lawmakers can force as much policy and economic initiatives as possible, but there will always be not only an inequality, but a sharp one.

     The greed and thirst for power have to be abolished from those in positions of influence. How is this a zero-sum game? Well, there is only so much wealth and resources that can be passed around. Thus, if the CEO makes more money, the chances of it being out of the workers pockets is high. This wealth inequality is painfully apparent in America where the top 5% have 62% of the nation's wealth.



     The graph is courtesy of the University of California, Santa Cruz. What stands out is the bottom 80% of people own 7% of wealth. Upon further inspection of the site, you can see that the bottom 40% own just 0.3% of wealth. Think of how absurd that is. Nearly 120,000 million people in our country have 0.3% of wealth while the top 1% have 43% of the overall riches. To me, that shows how there's a wealth struggle between the haves and the have-nots.

    So, my assertion now is that Friedman's attempt to dig other countries out is impossible if we have our own problems of economic equality. His view in our current world is clearly the rosy glass vision with his ground being less stable than standing on spring-time ice patches.

    Not only is there a wealth inequality, but there is also a resource zero-sum game. There is only so much material that can be processed to make goods. Furthermore, there is a limit on energy that can be used. It has been remarked numerous times that our energy use on a world scale is just not possible. The fossil fuels are our main energy source and there is a strain on these supplies as is. Therefore, for any progress to be made, the wealthy nations will have to downgrade their standard of living in order to bring the other countries up.

To think that 7 billion people (and growing fast) can live at the American level is a ridiculous notion. Friedman thinks the flatteners will create some sort of utopia has little chance at best. There has to be an overhaul in world values, national perceptions, and some belt tightening for world economic equality to ever come to fruition. 

Here are some links I used if anyone's interested:
http://www.duke.edu/~charvey/Classes/wpg/bfglosz.htm
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html

Till next time, I predict a win for the opening football game!