Are the total profit's in the world exactly the same as they were five thousand years ago? Or any time frame?

It’s a relative statistic isn’t it. As the amount of money in the world goes up, the value of it goes down.

So is the world's total wealth more or less than it was a thousand years ago?

how are you measuring wealth relative to a thousand years ago.

If our GDP goes up (apparently) we as a country have more money, if inflation also goes up we can buy less with it, if our currency falls against our neighbours we can buy import less. Are we richer or poorer at this point?

I'll use standard of living. Which measure do you want to use? Are we (whether the world, a country, or an individual or comparative standing, or whichever you choose) richer or poorer than we were a thousand years ago?

I think it is an impossible comparison to make. Standards of living can be improved by things other than finance. The fact that kids aren’t being killed and maimed by polio every summer is a clear increase in the standard of living. It doesn’t mean we are financially any richer.

I think it is just simply impossible to compare ‘wealth’ in that way. Besides when I mentioned a zero sum game, It isn’t necessary to compare to past years, the sum is between all the parties in the transaction. I cannot make a profit without either buying something for less than its worth (a loss to the seller) selling something for more than its worth ( a loss to the buyer) or adding more value than the cost of adding that value (a loss either to myself or my employees).

That's not how I read your original post, in which you postulated the theory that all large business was inherently amoral due to the need to maximise profit. I don't agree with you, and offered up a small business for comparison, and am still waiting to hear from you if think a small business, following the same business plan of maximising their profits, was also amoral.

And as there have been Rules and Regulations governing commerce from the year dot, and accepted, sometimes grudgingly by most as a fact of life, (apart from the criminal element), I'm not sure that more of the same is really going to improve everyone's lot.

That's sophistry.

This country has the Red Cross handing out food parcels, Save the Children spending money here and foodbanks growing at a massive rate.

A thousand years ago, one might have walked outside and got a few sticks to lay a fire to keep warm and to cook. One might have gone hunting for food or picked fruits and nuts and mushrooms etc.

Try doing that these days – not least in the urban environments in which most people live (having been herded, in effect, into them after enclosure and deforestation, in order to work in industry for the benefit of a limited number of people).

I mentioned in one of the comments I copied over at the top of this thread that the likes of Richer Sounds and John Lewis can treat their workforce decently and still be hugely successful, profitable companies. It is, at base, a moral/ethical decision to decide to do otherwise, although (as has been discussed here before) being listed means that the City applies artificial pressures on businesses (constant growth at rates determined by the City to be acceptable) that put increased pressure on companies to 2stop treating employees as an investment and start seeing them simply as a cost to be cut.

If the wealth – no matter how great – is not shared around more equally than it ever was, and takes account of the cost of living, then it is meaningless to talk of whether the world is wealthier, as a whole, than it was a millennia ago.

So it's clearly not "zero sum" when we are wealthier in terms of not being killed by polio for one. If you don't measure wealth in terms of health, lifestyle, enjoyment, longevity, then what's the point of wealth?
Your sums assume that the values of the products and services are equal to all parties at all times.

I think you're being a little harsh on the world to suggest the argument is misleading or fallacious.

Did we not have charitable organisations in the past? I'm sure any lesser charitable capability over most of history was more due to less capacity to give than more requirement for charity.

Would you like to look for sticks for fire and shelter tonight? Or would you prefer to go into a warm home with central heating? Something not available to most of the country just a generation or two ago.

I haven't made reference to levels of capitalism, I'm just pointing out to Smokey that he's being overly pessimistic in his zero sum belief. I recall I started a thread some time back asking if there was a winner and a loser in a transaction. The majority view was that most transactions should be and are beneficial for both parties (the cliched win/win) otherwise they wouldn't happen.

FWIW I work for a major corporation, publicly owned. Despite being publicly owned and aggressively pursuing growth we seem well regarded as an ethical and responsible company by both our employees, clients and shareholders.

The most obvious flaw in the current capitalist system is pay. Whoever has the ability to do so will generally line their own pockets at others' expense - whether that be senior executives, or in some cases unionised workforces where the power lies with workers.

The whole executive pay issue is a real bugbear for me, and I personally cannot see how anyone can defend the way the system works. Its a crock to talk of senior managers in established firms being paid so much because they return value to shareholders, because they still get paid when they go belly up - even walking away with massive payouyts for complete failure. In economic terms there is virtually no link between risk and return in executive pay.

I've mentioned before the idea of a multiple of salary system - nobody being able to earn more than "X" times the lowest paid full-time equivalent. That doesn't top someone from being able to earn a decent amount at the top, but ensures some degree of fariness to all.

I'd also remove the ability to pay anybody in anything other than wages. I've developed executive pay schemes in the past, and they are generally intended to align managers' interests with shareholders. The problem is that they are always one-way - managers take the upswings but won't countenance losing megabucks when the shareholders suffer, and they almost always morph into tax avoidance schemes rather than incentive schemes.

The whole process of setting executive pay is one of a members' club basically setting their mates pay and their mates doing the same for them. As I say, do away with the lot of it, introduce some very clear rules for the payment across the business as a whole and all of a sudden you'll find CEOs actually being interested in what cleaners earn.

But nobody should pretend that its just executives that do this. It is whoever has the power in bargaining. Sometimes unions do exactly the same.

A recent example of the unions using their power to effectively extort rates way above market is shown in the now soon-to-disappear car industry in Australia, where wage rates are double those in the US. Some of the other Enterprise Bargaining Arrangements were quite simply absurd - workers in the car industry were virtually unsackable, all union reps were allowed 10 days a year for union-related "training", something like one union rep for every 6/7 workers etc. Basically the unions had the power and got their noses in the trough.

We've seen similar boom-bust short-termism from unions in mining and related sectors, which are now feeling the crunch.

At both sides of the spectrum there really needs to be an understanding that eveyone can get paid more if a company is doing well, but not if they aren't.
Sadly it seems to be human nature for some people to solely focus on how much they can get at the expense of everyone else.

We are wealthier in that respect, we are also wealthier in the respect that the black plague and leprosy aren’t here any more. We are less wealthy in the facts that we have less space, less time, less forestry, more things cost money which were previously free, there is less wildlife (a food source), no space for farming, housing is ridiculously more expensive lcoking in a high proportion of a persons wealth.

How do we absolutely value each of those things to discover whether or not we have more or less than we did?

My sum assumes the capitalist hypothesis that market efficiencies will value the product correctly.

I actually think you are closer perhaps to what I was saying. Which wasn’t that profit should never be made, but simply that profit shouldn’t be at the expense of one of the parties in the transaction. I could grow my own tomatoes, i can pay more and buy them from a shop. I accept being the ‘loser’ in the transaction when I buy tomatoes from a shop. But if the shop suddenly started charging £200 per tomato, or paying a penny a ton for them from the farmer. Yet the shop declared massive profits. I would have a problem with that. That was my point. That buying as cheap as you can, and selling as high as you can shouldn’t be your over-riding aim. The clichéd win-win should be. So if we all remembered that if we get something ‘cheap’, we are, for whatever reason, talking something from someone for less than its worth we might approach transactions a bit more reasonably and avoid the exploitation and avarice so common in big business.

So significantly wealthier in many respects, glad we agree on some. On those where we don't, I would challenge your negativity towards the modern world. It wasn't that long ago when most factory and farm workers worked a six or a six and a half day week. Did they have more time? Not to mention we live for a longer time too.
You mention cost of housing, but we live in bigger houses than prior generations. Perhaps if we downsized the cost would be less, but we seem to prefer to pay for size.
On food....how often do you eat meat? Compare that to a generation or two ago and I'm sure you will find you are better off.

Your sum is just wrong then. It's a basic fact of economics that different people value products and services differently, and the same people value products and services differently at different times.

There is very rarely a lose/win transaction. You haven't "lost" in the tomato transaction. You could produce your own tomatoes, but it would almost certainly cost you more (in time, money for seeds, space, housing, food and soil) than simply buying them from a shop. If the shop priced tomatoes at £200, you wouldn't buy them. If the shop offered the farmer 1p a ton, he wouldn't sell them to that shop.

Have you ever sold something for less that it was worth to you, or bought something for more than it was worth to you?