You are right about the macro/micro point. That occurred to me during the writing of that post, but I decided to leave it in there because I was wrong and I did not want to confuse anyone else interested in the discussion.

You are correct, obviously, that wealth is created by people doing things that satisfy demand. For the purposes of our discussion, wealth is measured in dollars. Let's say there are two people on earth. One has 100 dollars, the other has 0 dollars. The person with zero dollars creates some widget that the dude with 100 dollars wants and charges the other guy 80 dollars for it. Guy 1 now has 20 dollars and guy 2 now has 80 dollars. Guy 2 created his wealth (his 80 dollars) by doing/building/whatever something that guy 1 wanted. Am I thinking about this too simply? How is it possible that wealth (measured in dollars) is introduced into an economy without it coming from another participant in the market?

I admit it's a bit abstract but here goes.

Guy 2 (inventor) had to employ himself, other people, and capital in order to create the widget. He has to pay those people and the owners of the capital, and in turn they now have income which they do "stuff" with. Some of it's consumed (spent) and some is saved (invested), in each case having yet more downstream effects. Maybe Guy 2 realizes he can sell more widgets to more people but needs to employ more labor and capital in order to do so. Multiply this sort of ripple effect by a kajillion, every second of the day, and that's sort of how it works. It's never stagnant, and the more activity there is, generally speaking, the more wealth creation is taking place.

But in a capitalist world, nothing is stopping anyone from being Guy 2, which is kind of my original point.

I see what you are saying, and after some additional reading on the subject can now see your point.

I guess it breaks down for me when you actually bring dollars into the model. You are absolutely right, widgets made of resources come from the combination of those resources and ingenuity. However, in modern society, refined resources are quantified in terms of dollars and once dollars are part of the equation, it must be zero-sum because people cannot just create dollars for themselves to buy stuff. They must create stuff to convert into dollars so they can buy other stuff. You can absolutely create stuff from nothing, but that does not mean that anyone is going to buy it, which would convert it into dollar wealth.

The introduction of dollars is irrelevant...you're overthinking it. There is a banking system that deals with the money supply, but that's another (possibly confusing) matter. Wealth is not not fixed, that is the only idea you need to get for this. Me being wealthy, even extraordinarily wealthy, does not therefore mean that you cannot be. If you get this concept you're already ahead of 95% of the world in terms of economic literacy.

What if I built my wealth exploiting child labor in Malaysia? What if it wasn't half a world away, but there was a source of similarly cheap labor in my neighborhood? I suppose that you are saying that the people working 12 hours/day for maybe 1 USD are getting more wealthy themselves than before, so a rising tide is lifting all boats?

Well, this is starting to drift from the original point, but it's all just supply and demand, my man. The guy taking a job for a pittance wage is presumably doing so because the alternative is worse, otherwise why take the crappy job? Is it really "wealth" as we know it? I suppose not, but it's still a better alternative, as uncomfortable as that might seem sometimes. But life isn't always all sunshine all the time.

Wealth is not fixed...repeat that 1,000 times. That's all that matters here. Capitalism is a system that allows people - anyone - to create wealth. Hell, look no farther than all these crazy tech companies coming public, the saas and social media revolutions or whatever. Why are they almost always US companies? Why isn't this stuff happening in Romania? We have a system that lets people create wealth for themelves no matter how rich others are, and it attracts talent and hard work and all that stuff, and it becomes a big virtuous circle.

Anyway, my point is just that wealth in this country isn't a real problem. It is not suppressive. It's the opposite, actually.

If there is one problem though, and this is something more recent, it's that with technology we all seem to have our faces rubbed in others' wealth. This is sort of a real problem...sort of. There are tons of really interesting behavioral economics studies that deal with this and show how it makes people feel worse about themselves. A topic for another day I suppose...

I suppose what this boils down to is that you and I fundamentally disagree on what makes someone wealthy. The below is an interesting take on the old parable of the fisherman and the investment banker. Capitalism is not the be all, end all of economic systems. It is certainly the system that best enables federated wealth-building, but it is not like everybody benefits equally. For real-life proof, have a look at the Banana Republics from the early 20th Century that profiteers created in Latin America.

http://blog.figuringshitout.com/the-parable-of-the-fisherman...

Hmm, how do I put this gently? Let me try.

I hate to break this to you, but you dont have the ability to "fundamentally disagree" on something like this. Put simply, you dont know what you're talking about. You obviously dont know anything about economics, and to the extent that you've read something it's clearly been selective in order to fit your worldview. You can disagree with me and be wrong if you insist on it, because these things you're saying are fundamentally and demonstrably wrong. You might as well tell me the sun rises in the west.