/biz/ - Business & Finance

You either give or take.

what did africa even lose?

>>15457346
>Europe succeeded by stealing from Africa!
Then how did they beat Africa on Afrian soil in the first place?

>>15457346
>Implying America is so wealthy solely because of Africa

kek

>>15457361
Their history

>>15457346
African politicians sold everything to other countries.

>>15457361
aside from oil, gold, silver, natural gas, forests, ivory, diamonds and democracy?

>>15457417
sounds like Africa needs to git gud

>>15457361
Nothing

>>15457417
pic related

>>15457361
Their right to sell slaves to Europeans. Remember that Europeans started trading in slaves because they discovered a market that already existed in Africa

Why didn't the african dig up all those minerals and diamonds and gold in the first place? They hade some 1000s of years....

>>15457417
None of those had any value to primitive, tribal bush niggers.

>>15457361
just picked a pic to oversimplify the concept.
not trying to pic a /pol/ fight.

>>15457469
indeed

>>15457346
are you talking about welfare gibs?

>Can concentrated wealth be created without someone losing?

No, because economics teaches us that voluntary trade is not a win-lose game, since value is subjective. A voluntary trade only happens when person A values what person B has more than the object A is willing to trade, and the same process must happen with person B, he will only trade when he perceives the object A is willing to trade is more valuable to him than the object he himself is willing to trade.

Therefore, when two parties trade, it's a win-win trade, since both have just acquired something they value more than what they previously had, meaning they are both wealthier (remember that value is subjective).

In summary, wealth can be created.

>>15457491
its okay but be aware that choosing this pic with such a title will create a certain context which will always lead to this.its not even a pol but a biz question since africa might benefit more form this in the long run .(if they are not stupid)

>>15457543
>thinking trade is a positive-sum game in all circumstances
Found the undergrad business major.

>>15457563
If its voluntary, it is, because value is subjective.

/biz/ would do well to study basic economics, this has been know since 1871.

>>15457579
Not all trade is voluntary, since trading itself has radically changed since 1871. Most trade is settled multilaterally instead of bilaterally, and most trade is not in goods but in capital. This is a big sea change from changing widgets for sprockets between two countries.

>>15457361
rapists and criminals

>>15457417
Well colonisation did not correspond with resource wealth of the nations, nor did colonisation actually make the empire faring nations richer than european nations which did not engage in it.

So no, and that's before pointing out African populations weren't using any resources like that anyway.

>>15457346
If I go into the woods and whittle a spear or a fishing pole I've just used my labor to create capital equipment. No one lost a spear or fishing pole. I can now use the implement to get meat or fish. If I made a ho I can start farming. The proceeds are wealth as are the tools as would be the farm if I started one.

So yeah wealth can be generated from nature by ones own labor without taking it from another human market participant.

Society used to be poor. Now we have indoor plumbing, antibiotics, cars, smart phones etc.

If everything was zero sum where did all the wealth of the last 500 years come from?

>>15457593
>Not all trade is voluntary

If its not voluntary, then there is some degree of coercion, either moral or physical, making it not a legitimate trade, since that person, under normal circumstances (no coercion), would not trade.

>Most trade is settled multilaterally instead of bilaterally

That doesnt change the fact that its voluntary, and that people will only trade if they perceive they are getting more than what they are giving in return.

>and most trade is not in goods but in capital.

That doesnt change anything either, you value the good (or service, or whatever) you are receiving more than the capital you are giving, and vice-versa for the other party.
And this is just one of the ways you can answer OPs question. Another way wealth is created is by building something with your hands, that is more valued in the market than the raw material (because if its valued less you actually destroyed wealth).

>>15457642
Cavemen were bazillionaires sweetie.

>>15457656
>trade doesn't count if it's not legitimate

dude you actually have to interface with the physical world at some point, and on planet Earth, trade flows are fucked up the wing-wong because of problems like regulatory capture (not just American regulatory capture, but Chinese and especially German) and power blocs determining trade and industrial policy.

>>15457417
>>15457469
>>15457497
The abos of Australia, the Natives of Alaska, the blacks of Africa, all complain that people with a vastly greater intelligence lifted them up out of poverty rather than exterminating them while taking the resources they were to unevolved to appreciate or develop.

Then the Marxist come along and say "pay these people" for the work they would have never been able to do, and society collapses

Fucking Jews, and fucking women should have no place in civil discourse.

>>15457642
but you're in land that your ancestors took from some other tribe, its the same. You wouldnt be fishing there if natives were still controlling the area

>>15457739
Not necessarily at all, beyond that new tools expand land access and enable much greater carrying capacity of the land. Land used to support a million is more valuable than that used to support a hundred.

>>15457688
>trade flows are fucked up the wing-wong because of problems like regulatory capture

I am aware of this, but OPs question is purely a theoretical one, if there is a way wealth can be created.

If you want to ask if today's world economy is based on voluntary trades or not, this is a completely different question.
Anyway, we dont have real capitalism anyway, we live in a state-intervention based economy, meaning we are always being coerced and prices are distorted, so we have no idea if the trades that are happening today would still happen in a free market economy or not.

I think it's kind of unfair that none of those coins are in the middle East/Asia as if it's only Europe and the USA exploiting Africa

>>15457753
precisely and thats why all the best land is already taken and owned by someone or some group. The land probably belonged to some other group and was taken in some war, thats the history of mankind.
Resources are limited, it may not seem the case because we live in era of abundance, but it will become more aparent as population explodes.
The point the guy was making is you can create wealth without taking it from someone else, which is kinda true, but you still need raw materials which lay in land which belonged to different people who lost it

>>15457809
It helps to maintain the illusion that white people run the world and control everything

>>15457812
>who lost it
or who is selling it for real cheap which is the case in 3rd world shitholes

>>15457698
>The abos of Australia, the Natives of Alaska, the blacks of Africa, all complain that people with a vastly greater intelligence lifted them up out of poverty rather than exterminating them while taking the resources they were to unevolved to appreciate or develop.

Have you ever heard of the the phrase "Necessity is the mother of invention"?

>>15457346

Of course it's not a zero sum game, otherwise how would we have arrived in this era of relative prosperity to begin with? Prosperity compared to most of human history that is.

Humanity did that through technological advancements. One really smart guy invents a bunch of shit. He sells his ideas and inventions for money to others. We all benefit. There's no theft involved.

The ONLY zero-sum game is involved in theft, or taxation as some choose to call it. Once people can live off the state's plunder, why bother producing anything? The unproductive gain more by not working. The productive gain nothing for their efforts as they are robbed of the fruits of their labor. As long as there is taxation, the state will grow until it consumes all productivity.

>>15457579

>not all voluntary trade is voluntary

Captain reading comprehension here

>>15457847
technologic advances, machinery, electronic components, all this stuff requires resources, lots of steel, copper, aluminium, etc.
Stuff to be found in plenty in some places, so we either took it from them or bought it real cheap. Maybe it was best for all and most benefited. But someone somewhere lost in the process.
The issue here is if it was voluntary or not, ie if it was an economic agreement (we sell you these resources for cheap) or if they were taken by force. In reality it was kind of a mixture of both

>>15457417
>oil, gold, silver, natural gas, forests, ivory, diamonds and democracy?
Just because they constantly squander something of value doesn't mean they don't have it.

>>15457346
I couldn't care less about Africa.

>>15457812
But plenty of conquest has been to unheld lands or involved superior technology allowing the use of areas not previously able to reach or utilize so left alone. Further to that that was only one small part of my argument.

>>15457656
>people will only trade if they perceive they are getting more than what they are giving in return.

Imagine i drive you deep into a desert, after a day of no water or food, i then offer you a cold drink and a heavy meal for ten thousand dollars wired to my account.
In this case, you will accept the deal not because you feel that the meal is more valuable than the ten grand,

a simillar concept is played off in real life. people are sometimes pushed into corners and forced to make decisions to survive, or in some situations coerced or deceived into thinking they need something

>>15457897

But there's no force involved there. If someone is sitting on huge mineral deposits they cannot exploit, they're worthless to them. Only when there's theft through military intervention like the capture of the vast mineral wealth in the Golan heights or Afghanistan is there truly a problem.

>>15458002

So your survival is more valuable to you than 10k. Why did you get into the car to begin with anyway? Seems like a strange thing to do.

>>15457374
KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANGZ

>>15458023
No i need the state to save me from the pain of decisions.

>>15457346
Yeah actually, somehow, it isn't really explainable. I had an economics class where the professor proved this exact point. She passed out small gifts mostly candy to all 50+ of us. After that we were told to rank our satisfaction with what we received. After that we were given time to freely mingle and trade what we had with everyone else in the class, and afterwards recorded our satisfaction with the trades we had made. Not a single person was less satisfied than before.

>>15458012
>If someone is sitting on huge mineral deposits they cannot exploit, they're worthless to them
there's still loss involved, because maybe 300 years down the line they COULD have exploited them but they already sold it for pennies. Even when there's voluntary exchange one of the parties is losing even if they dont realise it.
Does it matter? of course not, niggers werent gonna do much with their resources anyway, but they're on the losing side regardless

>>15457469
Underrated

I literally just read an article about lebron James signing a 1 billion dollar shoe contract with Nike

>>15457346
Sure, just provide a quality good or service that people are willing to pay for.

I think the best way to look at it is by looking at the animal food hierarchy.
plants acquire energy by taking mostly from the sun and soil nutrients.
but the issue is they produce very small amounts of energy.
herbivores and insects gain energy by consuming many plants. they get a medium grade of energy.
Carnivores consume herbivores and acquire high levels of energy through this.

Wagies are like plants. they toil and toil for a lifetime just to get by.
Business owners are like herbivores. they toil hard and have a chance to get fairly wealthy.
Wall street manipulators/ the 1 % & others who try to hack the system are carnivores. they manipulate the system and don't care if they rip of hundreds of thousands of people out of their life savings.

it is basically impossible to make massive wealth without ripping off a group of people. it's just that the guys who are good at it extract small amounts from millions of people

>>15458128

Loss of what? Maybe in 10000 years bottled water will be extremely expensive. Maybe your house will be worth trillions. It's irrelevant. When a voluntary trade is made, two parties decide what they value more at that time.

>>15458263
correct, but we both know the ones selling all their (finite) resources for a few dollars (which are printed unlimited) are getting screwed, even if they retarded shits that dont realize it

>>15457417
How many African nations were mining gold, silver and diamonds at the time colonization was starting?