If it seems to you that there’s been a lot of talking but nothing really happening. In Washington on energy policy, tax reform, social security reform and immigration legislation, you’re right. Nothing has been happening. Even though there’s been months and, in some cases, years of talking about what to do, our elected legislators can’t seem to muster whatever it takes to do it.
Such action is interesting because regardless of your social or economic status, whether you’re a suburbanite or a city dweller, young or old, black, white or hispanic, you have a great deal at stake in the ultimate resolution of these issues and in the content of any legislation adopted. But therein may lie part of the explanation for the impasse. There is so much at stake. So many to be pleased and so many to be potentially displeased, that our politicians choose to do nothing. Or, in some cases, choose to come up with such a bland compromise that the final piece of legislation contributes little or nothing to the solving of the initial economic or social problem which the legislation was originally designed to address.
Such an attitude reflects what “game theorists” call trying “to play the positive-sum game.” Game Theory is the view that human interactions at any given time may be categorized, more or less, into three types of games: positive-sum games; zero-sum games; and negative-sum games.
The positive-sum game is where winners outnumber losers, or better yet, where everyone wins! This is the kind of situation which all politicians understandably like. Everybody is relatively happy. But you ask, is that situation ever possible. Or more to the point, has that situation ever endured in our nation’s history? The answer to both questions is yes.
The positive-sum game dominated the political decision-making climate for the 25 to 30 years following World War II. Everybody was winning a little so it was much easier to make decisions that had long term consequences and broad impacts. As a consequence it was the time when the interstate highway legislation was passed; suburbia created, a homebuilding industry begun and homeownership made the essential part of the American dream. It was also the time when farmers got supports and G.I’s got educational and economic benefits when they returned from active military duty.
However, the advent of the 70’s with it’s energy shortages, environmental crises (both real and imagined) double-digit inflation and unemployment rates made the positive-sum game harder to play. For the last 25-30 years— continuing through today, we’ve been playing at best the zero-sum game. That’s the situation where for every winner there is a loser. So passing legislation providing school choice---particularly the brand that provides vouchers to parents that they can use to move their child from an ineffective, failing public school into a private school of their choice can be viewed as a zero-sum game by the legislators. There are clear winners. They are the low-income, often disadvantaged minorities, for whom vouchers are their only hope for escape from a public educational system that is failing them daily.
The losers, or those perceived as losers, are the teachers unions and the trade unions whose self-interest is perceived to be bound up with the continuance of the status quo. This is not a situation that elected officials like. You have as many unhappy people as you have happy: and the unhappy vote too.
But the zero-sum game is not likely to vanish soon. In fact, some political analysts believe that what we are really facing today is the negative-sum game. This is where you have not just a loser for every winner, but more losers than winners, or at least the losers losing more than the winners win. That kind of situation really makes politicians uncomfortable.
And that brings us to what may be the ultimate reason why we do not and will not see any significant direction changing legislation in education, social security, taxes and energy etc. It forces the legislators to make choices as to who gets and who gives. That sounds like a negative-sum game when they really want to play positive-sum games. They have other dreams too.
