> some of its fundamental assumptions (that the world is not zero sum) are dubious at best.
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The world is very decidedly not zero sum, you don't need economics to tell you that. Zero-sum games are a particular case.
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The world is very decidedly not zero sum, you don't need economics to tell you that. Zero-sum games are a particular case.
However, that doesn't in any way invalidate the claim that parts of the economy are in fact zero-sum. How large are those zero-sum parts - 10%? 20%? 40%? 80%? Nobody truly knows. Needless to say, the optimal survival strategy in a world of 80% zero-sum is vastly different than in the 10% world.
Also, although there's no data to back it up, I believe the zero-sum games as a proportion of our society are growing, and quite rapidly at that. It's a very worrying trend.
You might argue that it's not zero sum for practical purposes, but to me it looks very decidedly zero sum in many different dimensions (usable land, co2 release, fresh water, many minerals, list goes on).
Utility isn't measured in amount of land used or CO2 emitted or minerals extracted. This is not a Starcraft game.
Using land better increases the sum. Making energy production more efficient increases the sum. Zero-sum means that any of my gains is someone else's loss, which is not how any human society has ever worked.
A zero-sum world implies that any form of human cooperation that isn't literally war is impossible, which doesn't empirically seem to be the case.