By Lounge Daddy

The zero-sum game leads to chains of tyranny. But the non-zero-sum game leads upward to greater liberty.

There is a line of thought in politics that seems to express a need to make something scarce in order to protect it. This seems to have become a dominant view in modern political thought. It is dangerous because it makes everything a into a zero-sum game.

For those that don’t know, a zero-sum game is any game that says “for me to win, you must lose.” It pits everybody and everything against each other. A zero-sum game is ok on a football field or in a video game, but it is a damaging thing in the larger field of life. It leads to a place where everything good must be rationed, and people end up placed in boxes.

I’ve always known that a zero-sum game in an inaccurate way to view the Market. It leads to wealth-envy, suspicion of anyone who is successful, and it leads to blaming others for one’s own mistakes. But recently I have come to understand that a zero-sum game mentality can damage all parts of life.

It leads to an “either-or” mentality that is most easily found in religion and politics. This is a mentality that separates people into into either Republican or Democrat. Saved or damned. Patriot or terrorist. American or un-American. Conservative or liberal. Believer or infidel. This erases the individual. It places people into groups.

I’m guilty of this, too. Let’s face it, not all members of the private class want liberty. Not all members of the political class want to hurt you and me. Some people are actually joining the political class to dismantle the system from the inside – some of the Free Staters in New Hampshire, for example. While I know this, my language doesn’t always reflect it. I need to work on this.

Zero-sum game thinking is a great tool for totalitarianism. This is because it leads to a weird (and incorrect) logic that is easily taken advantage of by the political class. People become so busy considering things in terms of left-or-right that they stop noticing that the reality is more like up-or-down – up to freedom or down to statism.

It leads to talk like “not to vote for John McCain is, in fact, to vote for Barack Obama.” Or try this out: “Not to support National Socialism is, in fact, to support Soviet Communism.” That’s partly what helped Germany become Nazi Germany. There were some who refused to play that game. People like Dietrich von Hildebrend tried to explain to people that both choices were just “two heads of the same leviathan.” (Von Hildrebrand had to flee for his life when Hitler took power.)

Zero-sum game thinking is, of course, not accurate to real life. This is why people who get so deep into it, like many politicians, become out-of-touch with reality. They are completely out of step with the way the world works.

We are hearing the results of this kind of thinking all the time in America. “We need to sacrifice the free market to save the free market.” “We need to suspend personal liberty in order to save liberty.” “We need to restrict free speech on the Internet in order to save it.” Or, the latest one, “We need to make health-care less accessible in order to make it more accessible.”

It all flies in the face of logic. And it leads to a system that is incredibly fascist, because it demands a central power (the State) to manage everything from your personal health to your personal liberty. And this zero-sum game thinking is championed by elites who think that they know your health and your money better than you do.

We need to help people understand that everything that is good should be allowed to grow, not made to last through rationing. All that makes humanity good is very organic. They are all fruits of the tree of liberty and can only be allowed to grow. They cannot be made to happen through a government program.

For example, charity. Taxes run on an entirely false premise. Charity comes from the heart. The word itself comes from the word “catitas” – selfless love from the heart. It’s impossible to be charitable with other people’s money! But this is the lie that the income tax system implies.

Charity, health, employment, education… all of this and more can come from the tree of Liberty. But only of we allow it to grow. And that tree doesn’t need water and pruning. It only needs free people to thrive. And the more the better. All that the State does is blot out the sun.

Thank God you cannot kill Liberty. But you can hinder its growth, and you can even stomp it down – hurting people in the process. The State, which perpetuates zero-sum game thinking, does this.

The best antidote to zero-sum game thinking is to cultivate non-zero-sum game thinking. Believe that there are more than 2 options in everything that life brings, from elections to religion. Avoid “either-or” scenarios.

Election choices are not Republican or Democrat – you can also vote third party, or vote nobody. Don’t limit economic options to only the “official” market. There is an alternative economy out there, and it is getting larger as the State foolishly tries to take other options off the table. (Notably, in Michigan.) The black market is a tremendous source of economic relief, for individual and business alike.

The State hates options because the State fails when there is competition. That’s why the political class whittles the options down to just 2. This way the political class can actually control your options and ensure the survival of the State.

But we can combat this shell-game that the political class plays with its own people. You and I can live a non-zero-sum game life and perpetuate a world view that is more in line with freedom. We can water the tree of Liberty with more free people through our own example. You and I can unchain the Market and diminish the State.

But it has to begin at home with the individual. You and me.

Charity is the first fruit of Liberty, so charity is a good place to begin living a non-zero-sum game life. Education is important too. Give. Volunteer. Educate.

By living life in the non-zero-sum game, you and I will be living a more authentic life. Not only do you and I benefit, but we will allow the tree of liberty to grow; and then others can share of its fruit, so-to-speak. Everybody wins!

Courtesy, FR33 AGENT NETWORK