Let's say your customers are "everyone in the world," and your product is diamond rings. Your customers rank each other based on how big of a diamond ring they own. All customers want a bigger ring. When you sell one customer a slightly bigger ring he moves up a rank, and someone else correspondingly moves down a rank. In this abstract model if we assume rank is as important to each participant, you have provided no wealth.

This model corresponds well to bits and pieces of an absolutely massive portion of our economy.

More: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positional_good http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_the_Leisure_Class