Originally Posted by
jwatte
There are a limited number of people on Earth. The more people can be educated and made to produce things people want to buy, the more the economy of the world will go up. And when the economy of the world goes up, there's actually room for the economy for everyone to go up at the same time. This is the potential upside of "globalist trade policies" -- assuming everyone can cooperate, it is actually a win-win for everyone. And, because the global economy grows, the number of things invented gets bigger. The way a low-skill employed worker in the US lives today, would in almost all ways be considered fit for a king 200 years ago (except for the number of flunkeys they could order around -- can't wait for those household robots to appear :-D )
The problems, of course, show up when someone decides that they can do even better by letting others cooperate and then defect and not cooperate themselves. There is sometimes a strong incentive to enrich yourself more in the short turn, at the cost of making everyone worse off in the long term. Short term is very easily visible, long term is hard to imagine and less concrete. And, if enough people end up doing this, the cooperators end up losing out, and end up having to defect themselves, and we all make slower progress and the economy grows less.
Anyway -- just thought I'd add a little optimism to the "someone must lose for someone else to win" theme. All the best parts of human history (and the best built companies) come from a growth mindset, not a zero-sum mindset!