Behind the social economy lies the commodity economy, and behind the commodity economy lies the consumer population.

The poor (young people) have needs (desires) but no money, while the rich (older people) have money but limited needs (desires).

What happened over the past few decades was giving the poor consumer leverage (loans) to turn them into a large population of consumers, driving economic growth.

The process of having more people is a reshuffling—it benefits everyone, just to varying degrees. The process of having fewer people is also a reshuffling, but one that separates the winners from the losers (some areas improve while others decline, and opportunities are redistributed).

There are two main categories of consumer populations: stock consumers and incremental consumers.

In the stock population segment, there are two types of businesses: one that divides the cake in a stable market with a stable consumer base, where the question is why you should get a share—that comes down to having money and power; if you can't divide it, you have to steal it by converting their consumers into your own. (Journey to the West is essentially a game about competition for ecological niches.)

In the end, it all comes down to ecological positioning—primary, secondary, or no position at all.