Zero-sum

At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not committed to fixing what's wrong with the status quo, which is why we occasionally post messages like these, which are designed to give you, our supporters, the information that you need in order help us inaugurate the New Future.  Today's topic is the idea of a zero-sum game, or one in which there is only one prize that must be either shared by all parties or taken by one of them at the expense of the others.  At the GPD we believe that zero-sum games should be avoided whenever possible in favor of games where the more people that win the more society benefits.

Most "standard" democratic institutions are zero-sum.  Take, for example, elections.  The approaching Presidential election in the United States permits only one winner.  Even if both serious contenders were to gain the exact same number of electoral votes, one of them would be chosen by the courts as the winner, the other as a loser.  It doesn't get any better when more serious contenders are competing, either.  The more serious contenders, the greater the chance that no candidate receives a majority of electoral votes, making the outcome even less decisive, yet equally singular.  Other elections around the world follow a similar pattern, with one candidate having to make other candidates lose in order to be able to win.  The fact that this is a zero-sum game motivates politicians not to improve themselves or to ensure that they are well-informed, intelligent, and fit for the office they are seeking, but to instead show where their opponents are less-fit than they are and fosters negative campaign messages.  Rather than advertising the good that they will do when they are put in office, politicians often try to tell us something like, "At least I'm not such a bad choice as my opponent!"  To make matters worse, there are often other candidates that have good ideas and could make a difference if they were put in office, but the system tells voters that a vote for one of these candidates is wasted since they won't receive a majority of votes, and that instead of supporting the person that the voter would like to support he or she should simply vote for the least objectionable of the "serious" candidates.  Left unchecked, politics degenerates into a race to the bottom, just so long as the others are still further down.

Other democratic institutions such as the "free market" are also notoriously zero-sum.  An individual citizen cannot create wealth (at least not without the government objecting to it and calling it "counterfeiting"), but can only accrue wealth.  In order for someone to get rich, he or she must get the money from someone else.  The zero-sum nature of this game fosters the widening of the income gap and the creation of a multiple-tier class system.  The richest have the means to get money from the others, and so they continue to become richer, while the poorest continue to give their money to those from whom they acquire housing and food, and continue to become poorer.  Even if a poor person finds a way to make money, he or she is merely taking that money from others, and contributing to the destitution of others.  In this system wealth is not defined as having an abundance, but as having more than the rest of society.  Left unchecked, the currency-based free market encourages the concentration of all wealth in the hands of a small elite.  What is often worse, however, is that those who have the power to change aspects of this system are usually those who benefit from the zero-sum game of politics.

So, you may ask, how does the GNU Public Dictatorship plan to address these problems in the New Future?  The answer is surprisingly simple: we intend to change these systems from their current zero-sum forms to a more expansive positive-sum games.  For instance, rather than holding an election to fill a single vacancy in the GPD's Board of Dictators, we routinely hold "elections" that ask our qualified supporters to submit applications.  These applications are reviewed thoroughly, the candidates are vetted, and at the conclusion of the "election" (after all input has been considered) zero or more candidates are inducted into the Board of Dictators.  The candidates are not competing against each other, but instead against a standard of excellence.  All of those who meet the standard are given the reward.  In an extreme case, all of the candidates could become members of the Board of Dictators.  This simple change to elections means that our candidates do not need to acquire money or resources to convince others that they are "less evil than the others," but they simply need to prove that they are fit for the task.

As for economic systems, the GPD does not believe that allowing individuals to create their own currency would stimulate real, sustainable economic growth, but we do believe that if we provide the right incentives we can steer those individuals with resources to use them in such a way that more resources are produced and distributed to other individuals.  We will place less emphasis on money as wealth, and change the world perspective such that a higher standard of living is considered a loftier goal than the acquisition of currency.  With this as our common goal, we can convert the acquisition of wealth from a zero-sum game to one in which all participants who strive for excellence may improve their situations.  As long as the standard of living increases at a steady rate, the distribution of currency among world citizens becomes increasingly less important.  At the GPD we have been engaging in projects to manipulate the existing economic institutions for many years, and although we have made progress, we believe we will have to continue shaping the economic systems over the next few years, and possibly until we are fully in power.  Some of these projects will undoubtedly be disruptive, but we hope you will bear with us and understand where we are going.

In summary, the zero-sum nature of many of our current institutions creates incentives for mediocrity and for the harming of others, and is not desirable.  The GPD is addressing and will continue to address these shortcomings and convert these institutions into positive-sum systems, where individual success contributes to societal success rather than to class divisions or competitions.