system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
"The rich get richer and the poor get poorer" has recently become a common expression in political and economic discussion. It seems that if the rich get richer, then the poor must be getting poorer. Is it possible for the rich to get richer without the poor getting poorer?
gpt
Wealth isn't zero sum. Think about it, do you think the wealth is seriously the same as in 1000 b.c.? 10000 b.c.? 

Wealth is constantly created. We focus on money because that's easy to quantify, but any time a tree is turned into a chair, you create something that's worth more, you create more value. Any time someone grows corn or writes a piece of software you create something that's worth more. The output of goods and services rises on earth and has for centuries, we all constantly get richer.

Now, the *distribution* of that wealth is a different question, but not because any time someone gets richer, someone else gets poorer. That's not just some sort of fundamental, unchangeable mechanism. After all, inequality has gone up *and* down in history while absolute wealth has gone up/down at the same time. It's not somehow fundamentally intertwined.

It's true that a lot of the people in the lowest income groups have seen stagnant real incomes for some decades in the US, but there are specific reasons for that. Economists see rising inequality as a serious problem, but a solvable one. That this doesn't happen is by and large not a question of ability but political support.