A zero-sum game

Wish I'd said that!

[Reprinted from Issues & Views November 15, 2004]

When's the last time you heard of rock-and-roll lovers in conflict with opera lovers? It seldom, if ever, happens. Why? Those who love operas get what they want, and those who love rock and roll get what they want, and both can live in peace with one another.

Suppose that instead of freedom in the music market, decisions on what kind of music people could listen to were made in the political arena. It would be either opera or rock and roll. Rock and rollers would be lined up against opera lovers. Why? It's simple. If the opera lovers win, rock and rollers would lose, and the reverse would happen if rock and rollers won. Conflict would emerge solely because the decision was made in the political arena. The prime feature of political decision-making is that it's a zero-sum game. One person or group's gain is of necessity another person or group's loss. As such, political allocation of resources is conflict enhancing, while market allocation is conflict reducing.

Throughout most of our history, we've lived in relative harmony. That's remarkable because just about every religion, racial and ethnic group in the world is represented in our country. While we haven't been a perfect nation, there have been no cases of the mass genocide and religious wars that have plagued the globe elsewhere. The closest we've come was the American Indian/European conflict, which pales by comparison.

The reason we've been able to live in relative harmony is that for most of our history government was small. There wasn't much pie to distribute politically. When it's the political arena that determines who gets what goodies, the most effective coalitions are those with a proven record of being the most divisive -- those based on race, ethnicity, religion and region.

Many of the issues that divide us, aside from the Iraq war, are those best described as a zero-sum game, where one group's gain is of necessity another's loss. Examples are: racial preferences, Social Security, tax policy, trade restrictions, welfare, and a host of other government policies that benefit one American at the expense of another American.

The best thing the president and Congress can do to heal our country is to reduce the impact of government on our lives. Doing so will not only produce a less divided country and greater economic efficiency but bear greater faith and allegiance to the vision of America held by our founders -- a country of limited government.

(İCreators Syndicate)

-- Walter Williams, syndicated columnist and Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. He is author of The State Against Blacks, (McGraw-Hill), and several anthologies of his syndicated columns, which include: Do The Right Thing: The People's Economist Speaks (Hoover), All It Takes Is Guts: A Minority View (Regnery), and More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well (Hoover).

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