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Zero-sum games

By David Schlosser, candidate for U.S. Congress

Week of 13^th September 2006

http://www.schlosserforcongress.com/media-press/op-ed/060906_Zero-sum_game.php

When there are two people competing for a finite set of resources, whatever one person secures is lost to the other.  In a two-party political system, what one party wins, the other party loses.  Game theorists call this concept a “zero-sum game.”  The logical assumption is that the two parties represent the opposite ends of the political spectrum.  Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives.

A logical assumption, but – like most conventional wisdom – wrong.  Republicans and Democrats are two sides of the same coin.  While those parties may be polarized, they do not represent a true alternative to each other.  With rare and easily counted exceptions, both parties advocate the continual expansion of the Federal government into more and more varied parts of Americans lives.  Both advocate spending priorities that exceed our ability to pay for them.  Both believe the tax code is a tool for granting favors and encouraging or discouraging particular behaviors.  Neither so opposes illegal immigration, pork-barrel spending, or the corrupting influence of special-interest campaign funding that it will pass any legislation to actually address those problems.

Americans aren’t used to zero-sum games.  At the grocery store, they can choose among hundreds of breakfast cereals and, if they don’t find a cereal they like, they can choose oatmeal, yogurt, a muffin, or fruit.  Dozens of brands of automobiles, hundreds of stereos, thousands of styles of carpet and tile and wood and laminate, tens of thousands of book titles – Americans enjoy an embarrassment of riches in virtually every aspect of their lives, except their political choices.  Examining the positions of Republicans and Democrats proves there is virtually no difference among their policy positions:

         On health care, Republicans tend to favor the extension of today’s failed strategy of predicating health insurance on employment at a company that provides health benefits or income-qualified public insurance for poor families.  Democrats tend to favor the proven disaster of government-provided single-payer (Canadian- or British-style) socialized medicine.

o       A real alternative to these failed ideas would acknowledge that individuals making choices in a competitive marketplace of insurance products can extend the benefits of health care to far more people, and do so far more effectively and affordably, than turning our hospitals into a branch of the DMV.

         To solve the problem of America’s dismal public primary and secondary education system, Democrats tend to favor greater Federal funding for smaller classes and more teachers, despite the fact that there is no correlation between improved educational outcomes and greater spending or smaller classes.  Republicans tend to favor greater Federal funding conditioned on more testing, despite the fact that states and localities are free to manipulate the testing in whatever way necessary to continue securing their Federal funds.

o       A real alternative to these failed ideas would acknowledge that the root of America’s educational problems lies in the monopoly provision of educational services predicated almost exclusively on where a student lives, rather than what a student needs to learn, and that educational choice is proven to improve outcomes through competition.

         In Iraq, Republicans tend to favor what Democrats call “stay and pay,” while Democrats tend to favor what Republicans call “cut and run.”  Neither party acknowledges that both solutions demonstrably fail the test of wills between liberal democracies and the jihadists who realize that democracy threatens the only source of their power.

o       A real alternative to these failed ideas would end the political mismanagement of the war in Iraq and apply the military strategy and resources necessary to successfully and swiftly conclude America’s engagement there.

         On such sensitive social issues as so-called “gay marriage,” Democrats shy away from endorsing a solution that is near and dear to one of that party’s most steadfast constituencies because of the political danger of appearing outside the American mainstream.  Republicans embrace the issue as an easy, demagogical successor to the abortion issue, now stalemated in the culture war.

o       A real alternative to these non-solutions would acknowledge that the U.S. Constitution enumerates no role for the government in licensing or defining relationships among consenting adults, all of whom are created equal and all of whom must be treated equally.

         Republicans and Democrats share a willful ignorance about the demographic train wreck of Social Security and Medicare.  Both parties refuse to acknowledge the simple mathematical truth that the hallmark of American retirement planning is entirely unsustainable over the long run.

o       A real alternative to this head-in-the-sand magical thinking would recognize that, without massive and ongoing immigration of young and skilled workers into the American retirement security system, this Ponzi scheme is doomed to inevitable bankruptcy – either by running out of money or by crippling tax increases.  Arguing over whether the system runs out of money in 2038 or 2042 is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.  Personal, portable, and transferable ownership of assets is the only solution – and it’s working in the countries that are abandoning New Deal-style entitlement programs.

         In failing to even vote on any immigration reform program before the 2006 elections, Democrats and Republicans prove their utter inability to lead, follow, or get out of the way on the issue most important to their constituents.  Clever buzzwords like amnesties, guest workers, red-zone defenses, and walls all fail to acknowledge the simple supply-and-demand issues of immigration.

o       A real alternative to these failed ideas would welcome law-abiding immigrants who want to become productive American citizens, and improve border security by allowing the allocation of resources to where they are most important – preventing border crossings by terrorists and criminals bent on mayhem and destruction.

The dynamism of our culture and economy is based on circumventing the limits of a zero-sum game.  Rather than worrying about how to take away someone else’s piece of pie, leaders and innovators figure out how to make the pie bigger, which benefits everyone.  One of the last bastions of zero-sum thinking is the two-party system, in which Republicans and Democrats act as if they own the seats in Congress.  Until voters break away from the zero-sum thinking of the two parties, they will fail to acknowledge the real owners of those seats: American citizens.

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Libertarian candidate for U.S. Congress David Schlosser, 38, lives in Flagstaff, Ariz., where he is a public relations manager for a global microprocessor company and has been a part-time instructor in the School of Communications at Northern Arizona University.  He brings nearly a decade of political experience to his campaign for Congress, and is a graduate of Trinity University and the University of Texas.  His wife, Anne, is a corporate training and development professional.  For more information about Schlosser and his campaign for Arizona’s First Congressional District, visit www.SchlosserForCongress.com.  Anyone can take his issues identification survey at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=947042343520.

Authorized and paid for by Schlosser for Congress, Scott Gude, Treasurer

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