The plus symbol

I am going to use the plus symbol for pro-commerce.

Commerce's  most prominent attribute is that it is a positive sum human behavior. When two or more people interact in a commercial environment, sell something to another, they are all enhanced.

Virtually no other human behavior patterns are positive sum activities which is why the world was fairly static for the previous few thousand years.

War is predominantly a negative game, land changes hands and people die. Government is only a re-distribution of power that is a zero sum game. Religion, unless there really is an afterlife, is a zero sum game. The justice system is a redistribution and negative sum game.  In so far as population is looked at over time, reproduction and the associated child rearing, love and marriage are a zero sum game. Population growth per se is not beneficial. I have my doubts about the value of education considering how long the world has gone with education and little improvement in life.

Education does play a special role because two millennia of Jewish education uniquely prepared Jews for the modern commercial world.

There are some other positive sum games like commerce. I would have to put insurance in that category. I would also put in technology when operating in a commercial environment as a positive sum game.

In general I think the + symbol is more appropriate to pro-commerce than to any other human endeavor. Don't hesitate to argue with me, please.