I don't think it is merely a matter of redistribution. It can escape the zero-sum game through productivity gains, technological progress, recycling, and better legislation (for example, policies that regenerate forests). It may even create new industries as replacements. Because of this, I don’t believe it is inherently a zero-sum game.

> The only thing we can put economic value on are goods and services that use finite resources

A software patent does not consume physical resources (aside from the initial human labor) yet holds tremendous economic value. An app can be easily duplicated, making it a virtually infinite resource, while the patent remains attached to its novel functionalities.

> It can escape the zero-sum game through productivity gains, technological progress, recycling, and better legislation

Isn't that just a temporary reprieve of optimization in a broader zero sum game though?

All of those feel to me like ways to take advantage of inefficiencies in the system rather than escaping the game all together.

There is always the possibility to dig deeper mines, explore further into space or just give people the possibility to live more a comfortable life.

But it is not only about that. Trade is also for comparative advantage. If you ever played settlers boardgame with more than two players you'll soon realize that whoever trades the most wins. And it does not really matter who you trade with, it is just reaping the benefits of trade instead of being stuck with 10 wood that is of low value to you but of high value to someone else.

What you're describing is a zero sum game. The world is limited to the board game, and whoever is best at trading and strategy collects the most finite resources and the others lose.

(Sorry if I lost the thread here. Most here were trying to argue that trade and globalization are a way to escape a zero-sum game).

I get your point, but I don't think a board game is a good abstraction to collapse the real world into. The world is not a fixed, closed system with finite resources. In a board game, expansion and innovation are not possible, only trading and strategy, as you mentioned, can optimise the system to some extent. Moreover, winning in a board game happens solely because of its rules, whereas in the real world, one person's success does not necessarily mean another's loss. Trade can be mutually beneficial, driven by each party's ambitions.

Innovation is an interesting wrinkle in the comparison for sure (I used the comparison only to continue with the previous commentor's point). Innovation only increase the potential usefulness of resources though. Assuming that will always avoid hitting the boundary of the zero sum game assumes perpetual innovation at a good enough pace to keep up.

Trade is an interesting one because it can be mutually beneficial, though it rarely includes everyone. Two countries can trade and both be better off, but other countries excluded may now be worse off. Trade also can't be mutually beneficial with regards to relative gain. Both sides can gain in trade or cooperation but one will always have gained more than the other. That doesn't make my point by the way, but an interesting related dimension to the whole topic.

My post had two paragraphs.

The first tried to explain that it does not necessarily have to be a zero-sum game.

The second paragraph tried to explain that, even if you do see it as a zero sum game, trade between two parties, or trade in general, can give you benefits over ones who are not part of the trade.

Obviously I am trying to describe this in simple terms without writing a book. But i do think the board game analogy holds even though it is very simple.

That's a very limited (XIXth century?) perspective.

A forest (like, anything) has economic value, as soon as you get people to adopt/believe in it.

A forest may even have a greater economic value than the lumber it could produce, if it would, for instance, help/ensure the prosperity of something else that has economic value (leisure, wildlife, heat protection, soil water retention, etc.).

I completely agree outside of economics. I put much higher value on a forest than lumber. Economically, though, where is the forest ever accounted for?

In your strategic business plan, by IFRS accounting standards (existing and developing).

You have several options, account for it as lumber (but... well), or as a carbon sequestration well (so you could get carbon credits, IAS 38), or as an ecosystem providing services (several frameworks under work here), or as a contingent liability or asset (IAS 37, can be in the balance sheet if the probability of event/impact is high/certain).

Even if you forget to account for it, your insurance likely will remind you about it.

Once someone can "own" the forest, that be a bit of a cheat around the whole idea. I'm thinking out loud here, but I think all of you're examples are actually valuing the financial mechanisms rather than the forest itself.

The carbon credits are given economic value, its just not a physical resource like lumber so its harder to distinguish that the credit holds the value rather than the forest.

You ask me how to account for it. In accounting, that’s how, and you can get creative too.

Sure, but in those accounting mechanisms are you valuing the forest or the financial asset the paper ownership of forestland grants you?

I'd expect the lumber or carbon credits, for example, to be the actual asset accounted for rather than the forest itself.