A friend directed me to the Greedy Goblin. He's a guy who shares his tips on how to become rich in World of Warcraft.The Greedy Goblin understands something about economics that most folks in the real world don't quite grasp. In order for someone to get rich, someone else has to be a loser. In WoW, this isn't a real problem. For one thing, the currency is in unlimited supply. There is always a way to get more. There are also ways where the 'loser' in the deal is a non-player character, so you don't have to take advantage of someone else. Even if you do 'fleece the morons', it's just game currency. Nobody is going to be without a bed tonight because they were dumb enough to buy your goods at a ridiculous price.
But the same principles apply to real world economics. If someone is getting richer, it means someone is getting poorer. If someone figured out a method by which everyone could 'get rich' playing the stock market and everyone stopped working real jobs, the entire economy would collapse for want of real goods.
The rich would have to understand this. They are okay with fucking over other people. That sucks. Unless it's just a game. Then capitalism is fun!
1 comment:
There was an interesting piece on NPR (This American Life, I think) where they interviewed someone who had been a stock trader for a long time. He talked about the ridiculous sums of money they made and the way that the ideology of market economics helps alleviate the guilt that came with such disparity. Namely, most economic theory assumes that people are "rational" and driven by money only. Morality is a function of economics. He said that a side effect of that philosophy is the idea that everyone would get what they could if they had the chance, so there's nothing immoral about being the one who has the chance.
When I teach classes that wander into economics, it's always an interesting moment when I suggest that capitalism depends on most people being poor.
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