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Comment by hoaw | Hacker News Reader

I think it is hard to make that into a constructive argument.

Either you care and the 'allocation' is unfair.

Or you don't care, which means that the market doesn't work since you caring is what is supposed to allocate resources fairly, and it is still unfair.

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The word 'allocate' presupposes a fixed pie that we're expected to split in a zero-sum game. That works for redistributing the fraction of wealth captured in taxes. But the parent's argument is about the process of accumulating wealth itself being zero-sum somehow.

Thinking "someone earned money which would have gone to me otherwise" is like thinking "someone got in shape and that physical fitness would have gone to me otherwise".

Where does the dollar come from? A printer in a U.S. mint building. Every single one. No dollar can come into existance without being printed in one of these buildings. This is not like working out or singing a song, you can’t will money into existance and into your pocket, ultimately someone in charge of a larger pile of money wrote you a check. There is a finite amount of money in the world.

Banks will money into existence every time they issue a loan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Money_creation

When I deposit $1k in the bank and you take a $500 loan, $500 is created out of nowhere. You are using my deposit yet I still have a balance of $1000 on the books.

Banks cant will money into existance. If you withdrew your money the bank has to pay you from other funds. During the great depression banks collapsed this way, the only thing stopping that today is banks have enough funding to buffer people withdrawing from their accounts.

I don't really matter if it is a growing pie or not, you are still getting a share. I am sure Uber creates a lot of new wealth, but the average driver most likely isn't seeing a lot of it.

Why doesn't the absolute share matter? If I give everyone an iPhone and a few people get an iPhone + Macbook, is that "bad"? Isn't everyone better off? (Yes, humans can be petty and jealous, but they are objectively better off.)

Uber created a lot of wealth. Some got more than others. Is that objectively bad if the wealth didn't exist before?

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