[Vision2020] Washington Times article I found interesting

[Ted Ryan]

Probing the zero-sum divide


By Walter E. Williams


Appeared in the November 11, 2004 edition

Recent elections indicated deepening divisions among Americans. Has anyone
given serious thought to why? I have part of the answer, which begins with a
simple example.
    Different Americans have different and intensive preferences for cars,
food, clothing and entertainment. For example, some Americans love opera and
hate rock 'n' roll. Others have opposite preferences, loving rock 'n' roll
and hating opera. When was the last time you heard of rock 'n' 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 'n' roll get what
they want, and both can live in peace with one another.

Suppose instead of freedom in the music market, decisions on what people
could listen to were made in the political arena. It would be either opera
or rock 'n' roll.
    Rock 'n' rollers would be lined up against opera lovers. Why? It's
simple. If the opera lovers win, rock 'n' rollers lose, and the reverse if
rock 'n' rollers win. Conflict would emerge solely because the decision was
made in the political arena.
    The prime feature of political decisionmaking 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, politically allocating resources increases conflict while
market allocation reduces conflict. As more decisions are made in the
political arena, the potential for conflict increases.
    There are other implications of political decisionmaking. Throughout
most of our history, we have lived in relative harmony. That's remarkable
because just about every religion, racial and ethnic group in the world is
represented in our country. These are the very racial/ethnic/religious
groups that for centuries tried to slaughter one another in their home
countries. Among them: Turks and Armenians, Protestants and Catholics,
Muslims and Jews, Croats and Serbs.
    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.
    We have been able to live in relative harmony because, for most of our
history, government was small. There wasn't much pie to distribute
politically.
    When the political arena decides who gets what, the most effective
coalitions are the most divisive - those based on race, ethnicity, religion
and region. Our most costly conflict involved a coalition based upon
region - the War of 1861.
    Many of the issues dividing us, aside from the Iraq war, are those best
described as a zero-sum game, where one group's gain is necessarily
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.
    You might be tempted to think the brutal domestic conflict seen in other
countries at other times can't happen here. That's nonsense. Americans are
not superhumans; we possess the same frailties as other people in other
places. Were there a severe economic calamity, I can imagine a political
hustler exploiting those frailties here, just as Adolf Hitler did in
Germany - blaming it on Jews, blacks, the East Coast, Catholics or free
trade.
    The best the president and Congress can do to heal our country is reduce
government's impact on our lives. This would not only reduce divisions and
improve economic efficiency but bear greater faith and allegiance to our
Founders' vision of America - a country of limited government.

    Walter E. Williams is a nationally syndicated columnist.



-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 49 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20041112/14e96f75/attachment.gif
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 49 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://mailman.fsr.com/pipermail/vision2020/attachments/20041112/14e96f75/attachment-0001.gif