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Non-zero-sum situations are those in which one person's benefit does not necessarily come at the expense of
someone else. In zero-sum situations, one person must lose in order that another
can win. Non-zero-sum situations exist where the supply of a resource is not fixed or limited. It is a case of building a
resource rather than dividing it between players. In some non-zero-sum situations, a person can benefit only when others benefit
as well.
The concept was first developed in game theory, so that non-zero-sum
situations are often called non-zero-sum games regardless of whether the situation is a game.
Examples of non-zero-sum situations
An example of a non-zero-sum situation is the enjoyment of a musical work. You do not enjoy a song simply because someone else
doesn't enjoy it. If you are enjoying a song, and someone else stops to enjoy it as well, that person's enjoyment does not
necessarily detract from your own. Likewise, you do not find a joke funny simply because someone else does not.
Knowledge is often a non-zero-sum commodity because it can be used by many people without being "used up." Someone who invents
a better way to raise water from a well does not suffer if people from another village learn his new technique and adopt it for
themselves.
Non-zero-sum situations are an important part of economic activity due to production, marginal utility and value-subjectivity. Most
economic situations are non-zero-sum, since valuable goods and services can be created, destroyed, or badly allocated , and any
of these will create a net gain or loss.
If a farmer succeeds in raising a bumper crop, he will benefit by being able to sell more food and make more money. The
consumers he serves benefit as well, because there is more food to go around, so the price per unit of food will be lower. Other
farmers who have not had such a good crop might suffer somewhat due to these lower prices, but this cost to other farmers may
very well be less than the benefits enjoyed by everyone else, such that overall the bumper crop has created a net benefit. The
same argument applies to other types of productive activity.
Trade is a non-zero-sum activity because all parties to a voluntary transaction believe that they will be better off after the
trade than before, otherwise they would not participate. It is possible that they are mistaken in this belief, but experience
suggests that people are more often than not able to judge correctly when a transaction would leave them better off, and thus
persist in trading throughout their lives. It is not always the case that every participant will benefit equally. However, a
trade is still a non-zero-sum situation whenever the result is a net gain, regardless of how evenly or unevenly that gain is
distributed.
Complexity and non-zero-sum
It has been theorized that society becomes increasingly non-zero-sum as it becomes more complex, specialized, and
interdependent. As one supporter of this view states:
The more complex societies get and the more complex the networks of interdependence within and beyond community and
national borders get, the more people are forced in their own interests to find non-zero-sum solutions. That is, win-win
solutions instead of win-lose solutions.... Because we find as our interdependence increases that, on the whole, we do better
when other people do better as well - so we have to find ways that we can all win, we have to accommodate each other -
Bill Clinton, Wired interview,
December 2000.
See also
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