Zero-Sum Game
Etymology
The term comes from game theory as founded by John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern in “Theory of Games and Economic Behavior” (1944), where the payoffs to all players sum to zero. “Zero” traces through Italian “zero” from Arabic “sifr,” empty.
noun phrase · /ZEER-oh-sum GAYM/
A situation in which one party’s gain is exactly another party’s loss, so the total never grows.
What it names
A handle for the difference between fighting over a fixed pie and baking a bigger one — and a way to catch “zero-sum thinking,” the mistaken belief that every gain must come at someone’s expense.
Example
He treats every negotiation as a zero-sum game, so he never notices deals where both sides could win.
Related idea
The antidote is comparative advantage, which shows how trade is positive-sum — both parties can end up richer, proof that not every interaction is a fixed pie to divide.