The monetary system, nor money isn't a zero sum game.

A zero-sum game assumes that there is a finite amount of materials available for production and consumption, therefore currency based on said goods. Since there is not a finite sum of resources, goods or services available (or at least for the next ~1 billion years), then it isn't zero sum.

For example, a construction company takes input goods such as wood, mortar and other products to construct a house. If the company sells the house for money and creates another house, more products are created. Since the wood and other materials are replacable, then further goods can be produced. Therefore, you can continue to create wealth and money by the production of more goods, or services.

If it were a zero sum game, then there would only be a set number of houses available to be purchased, and populations would shift among them as availability dictated. There would be only so many Nintendo Wii's available for play in the world, and so many copies of Super Mario Galaxy. Since that isn't the case, and more can be produced, such products and wealth are not zero sum.

Also, I can think of a society that operates without money.

However FOR it to operate without money it would require either

A) People to stop wanting pretty much anything not related to needs.

B) Scarcity for non need objects to be eliminated by things like Star Trek Replicators.

In otherwords... your still working under the same system as outlined, without money. You are simply either decreasing demand or increasing supply to do it.

You can find communes that attempt to work without money. They've existed in notariety for the past ~40 years in the US. They never work because, as you said, scarcity and differentiation among workers exist. The societies always break down because one person invariably works less often than the others and drags down the entire system, causing systemic failures inherant in such a system.

a) seems unlikely but assuming some form of Universal Constructor becomes possible then so does b) I guess.  Without any formal need for anyone to be dependant on anyone or anything else for anything they wanted current monetary systems would seem to be redundant.

EDIT: actually scratch that a little bit : if - big IF I guess - you assume fully capable Universal Constructors I'd imagine that original ideas/designs would become a source (perhaps the only source) of potential difference between individuals.  Would that require some form of barter/monetary system?  Assuming no change in basic human behaviour I guess it could.

It doesn't take a scientist to see that money is a Zero-Sum Game. You're conflating other things with the simple possession & subsequent control of monetary pieces. In your mind, it was money that funded the health advances & technologies. In reality, it was ingenuity & insight that built the technologies to make those health advances. And that technology could be built WITHOUT money.

You see this society of the United States of America which promotes the sacredness of money & don't question what has been hammered into you since you were birthed into the world. There will be a time in human existence where the concept of money is looked at in a historical perspective. Right now, money is the middleman to every resource so of course you yourself will see money at the root of every advance. But it is not the money, it is the resources, the materials that are shaped into tools that become technologies to advance societies. Money ALWAYS attaches itself to things of TRUE Value.

I'm not talking about the current era. I'm talking on an eternal level. I'm talking way beyond this current timeframe.
One day there will be once again a society where money doesn't exist. I recognize how human fabrications become accepted as etched-in-stone facts of life.
I laugh when I hear sci-fi shows talk about the space-time continuum. There is no such thing as time! Hahahaha! It's something we created to track & measure patterns of change. We have altered calendars numerous times omitting days & whole weeks, whole months even. A Pope in 1582 simply said just get rid of those 10 days when the calendars were not aligned with the cosmos. "See you tomorrow!" said somebody on October 4th & the next day it was October 15th. One man has to power to just CHANGE time??? Just like that??? Well, it is fake after all. Arbitrary like many thing human beings do.

Money is just like what I said about time. And that's pretty funny considering the saying 'Time Is Money'. Maybe that's why slavedrivers, I mean, employers chastise employees about "stealing time". We seem to think that just because an illusion is intricate & elaborate that it can no longer be an illusion.  No matter how much complexity an illusion has at the end of the day, it's still an illusion.

Money is an illusion & unfortunately it's one I am caught up in. Born into it. I'm forced to play this stupid game to get the truly valuable things I need in life. But I'm ahead of the game by knowing what money really is. And with luck, I will have the ability to get beyond that game.
John Lucas

P.S.: With all the technology available, they should be curing cancers right now. Chicken Pox??? That's the best they can do???  Guess so when all they do nowadays is sell new drugs to take on the TV. The money motive is ruining the medical field. Ask Chris Rock about it. The money ain't in the cure, it's in the medicine.

Likely so. IP management would still exist in such a society, which would then become a potential source of product to barter.

For example, I may have X, Y and Z needs or wants met, but I create a way to satisfy desire A. If that product is indeed mine, then there would need to be a way to earn return on the time and effort I put into creating said product or service.

I mean, in the past 100 years, productivity for certain goods and services has risen so high that some items can be traded for almost no value. For example, books that were produced a long time ago at a cost of a day's wages now cost nothing via Amazon. Movie delivery through Netflix has taken a product that used to cost a part of a day's wage for a ticket to the theater now is about 1 hour of work for a month worth of content. The amount of money needed to sustain a human's caloric requirement has plummeted as well, as energy-dense foods become cheaper and cheaper.

So I think your on to something smart. Even if certain things were made redundant through a 'Universal Constructor', other goods, services, or research into new goods/products would still be needed, and a form of exchanged would need to exist to ensure such services were bartered correctly.

What did the dotcom and tulip bubbles have to do with the soundness of money?  Bubbles happen with or without government intervention.  Government can amplify it and make it worse, but not always.

Yeah that's what I was thinking.  The interesting aspect is that you'd get - in theory - a huge focus on IP and creation of new IP.  Another aspect I thought of was raw materials - a UC needs to create stuff from something so far as I know.  So in addition to IP I'd guess that raw materials would suddenly hold value - although in theory it would be more of a policing aspct as with a UC you could use anything for construction, so you'd need controls to stop me deciding to consume your lawn with my UC to make something I'd like for me.

There are actually lots of very successful communities based on communal principles that (internally) do not operate based on money but they tend to be highly religious groups with close family ties, a deeply ingrained work ethic and they don't include more than (about) 100 people. For the most part, many of their values represent a rejection of the modern western world, and are especially in direct opposition to modern liberal/socialist values; and these values are essential to the society functioning.

Curing cancer?  Do you have any idea how cancer even works?

Outside which... you keep contradicting yourslf.

1) Money is a middle man for every resource.  Therefore money is tied directly to the value and amount of resources we have.

2) Resources are NOT a zerosum game.  New resources are discovered all the time.   I could go outside my house start a garden, and grow my own food.  Created by my own hands and work WITHOUT needing to take it from someone else. 

Therefore money CLEARLY isn't a zero sum game.