“Honor is a zero sum game.”

— David Graeber

Source: Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011), Chapter Seven, "Honor and Degradation", p. 175

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Honor is a zero sum game." by David Graeber?

David Graeber photo

David Graeber55

American anthropologist and anarchist 1961

Related quotes

“The world of shelf space is a zero-sum game: One product displaces another.”

Chris Anderson book The Long Tail

Source: The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business Is Selling Less of More (2006), Ch. 2, p. 40

“In a zero-sum game, the problem is entirely one of distribution, not at all one of production.”

Kenneth N. Waltz book Man, the State, and War

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter VII, Some Implications Of The Third Image, p. 202

“Beating the market is a zero-sum game for investors. Money managers, as a group, must provide the market return… But that return comes only before their exorbitant fees, operating expenses, and portfolio turnover costs are deducted. The zero-sum game before costs becomes a loser’s game after costs.”

John Bogle (1929–2019)

Gilbert Lecture, Princeton University, Feb 21, 2013

“The Silicon Valley culture is "I can win and you can win" - it isn't a sum-zero game.”

Steve Blank (1953) American businessman

Interview with Steve Blank (2013)

“Leadership isn't a zero sum game. When one of us shines it doesn't diminish the others, it reflects on all of us.”

John Reid, Baron Reid of Cardowan (1947) British politician

Speech to the Labour Party conference in Manchester, 28 September 2006. BBC News 28 September 2006 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/5388112.stm

“But the stock market is not 1:1-it is not a zero sum game. So those deaf, dumb and blind economists can't find the capital flows.”

Andy Kessler (1958) American writer

Part VII, The Margin Surplus, Wealth How?, p. 261.
Running Money (2004) First Edition

“Thus evolved some members of the Core—not altruists, but desperate survivalists who realized that the only way ultimately to win their never-ending zero-sum game was to stop the game. And to stop the game they needed to evolve into a species capable of empathy.”

Dan Simmons book The Rise of Endymion

Source: The Rise of Endymion (1997), Chapter 20 (p. 406)

“We act like a zero-sum society, when in reality there is a lot of non zero-sum fat to be skimmed off to everyone's mutual advantage.”

Howard Raiffa (1924–2016) American academic

Part IV, Chapter 21, Environmental Conflict Resolution, p. 310.
The Art and Science of Negotiation (1982)

“With a zero sum game, it almost always ends up being a question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Both people involved will perceive the other to have started it.”

Teal Swan (1984) American spiritual teacher

“Zero sum game implies winners and losers. If somebody wins, somebody gotta lose…. I don’t agree with that. Because all boats can rise on a rising sea. Good films help other good films. Different psychology. If you’re overly competitive, you say it is exclusionary, a zero sum game: I must win so he must lose. That’s not true. We can all win without forcing the other guy to lose.”

Oliver Stone (1946) American film director, screenwriter, and producer

Wall Street DVD Director’s Commentary (2000)

Related topics