The Zero Sum Game
We’ve made a lot out of the fact that conservatives don’t really govern. There is a subtle difference and that difference comes in the legacy of conservatism from 1981 forward. They have not offered any new programs or any significant plank that has made our lives better. Conservatives superpower is messaging. They have crafted a very simple message over time that has become so ingrained that people now assume it to be true. It really is a two-pronged message that relies on each other to pass muster.
Believe it or not, most progressives aren’t socialists. We like capitalism. We like the idea that someone can get ahead by building a better mousetrap. We like robust choices as consumers. The idea of someone getting rich isn’t repugnant on its own. The devil is always in the details. How did they do it? Now that they are rich and powerful, what are they doing to people lower than them on totem poll?
The first coup of modern conservatism was their ability to redefine success itself. What does it mean to be successful? If you ask them it means having a good job, making a lot of money, and buying a bunch of stuff. The person with the most toys wins. The person with the fanciest title wins. The person with the biggest bank account wins. However, we can redefine success to shun the notion of winning and losing. Deeply personal success happens without bank accounts, toys, or fancy titles. Deeply personal success happens when we manage to take our gifts and use them to make the world a better place.
Specialization just might be man’s greatest gift to the world. It might be the most important thing that separates us from all of the animals. Each of us can become an expert in something worthwhile. Either that, or we can use gifts of compassion, empathy, and deep human connection to help those that need our help.
If we begin to see success as a positive impact on the world around us then we cease to see it as winning and losing. If we surrender the notion that successful people win then we also repudiate the notion that life is a zero sum game. That is the second conservative plank and it is even more insidious than the first one. If there are winners and losers in the game of life then we also are bound to see connections between others’ success and our failure.
The concept of a zero sum game is easy to see as a sports analogy. Someone or some team must win the game. If they win then the other team does not. So, you either win or you lose. In life, that begins to look like the predatory capitalism we have seen develop over the past 40+ years. If I want to be successful then you can’t be.
In this paradigm it becomes easy to hate the other. The other turns into whatever we need to tell ourselves to feel good about what we need to do to be successful. It could be migrants. It could be ethnic minorities. It could be women. It could be members of the LGTBQ+ community. It could be whoever or whatever we need to convince ourselves that what we are doing is okay and justified. Therefore, government programs are bad. Charity for charity sake is bad. Mercy is bad. In order to combat this notion we have to fight the battle over the definition of success.
i have always thought the same way and been punished by co-workers and a few crazy bosses…did we get switched at birth??
1Yes, Republicans don’t want to govern…they want to rule. Governing is difficult because you have to think of the American public as a whole in order top serve them properly. With ruling, as long as you retain the power to stay in control, it remains irrelevant whether the whole is taken into consideration. The Republications want to be the shepherd, and we the sheep. Unfortunately with the current political climate, there are far to many Americans who find it acceptable to the sheep.
2Meanwhile, the Mango Fat Fascist remains the most visible narcissist of our time. He doesn’t even know where he is holding a rally–which town and which state. Gosh, isn’t it easy to see why so many people love this conman? He is so attractive, so erudite, so charming…s/
3Interestingly, basic free market theory is based on the idea that markets are a non-zero sum game. Example: if I have an apple farm, and you have a bakery, I can trade you apples in exchange for apple pies. We’re both better off for the trade.
It was the communists that thought markets were a zero sum game…
4Republicans villify poor people. If you can’t make enough money, it’s your fault. The thing is, they don’t want poor people to succeed. If we can keep people down, we can climb over them, so they go after any government assistance program. If we give poor people help, they won’t work! Time after time, studies have proven this not the case, but Republicans keep saying it anyway because, sadly, people are more than ready to think the worst of others. All these same people tote out their love of Jesus and brag about how Christian they are, but that’s a rant for another day.
5Republicans don’t want to give handouts to poor people, or Social Security to the middle class, or Medicare – – but multiple tax rate reductions in the last twenty years? That’s fine. A lower effective tax rate than the average person because FICA is capped at $160,000? They’ll take it. And buy a boat.
6Edited:
7… multiple tax rate reductions FOR THE WEALTHY in the last twenty years?
Rick @4, Rick is making the usual mistaken assumption that the FICA [Social Security, Disability, Medicare..] plan is just another tax, and that it’s somehow more favorable to the wealthy.
This is an incorrect, and dangerous for most, idea that is generally advocated by the Rethugs to harm the ‘Plan’ [I know that Rick is a solid Dem].
FICA and the whole Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) plan, while having aspects of a ‘tax’, is basically an insurance and pension plan, for the benefits of most wage earners.
By characterizing it as a tax, the Rethugs attempt to make it seem negative and deserving of changes or elimination.
One of the key points that they advocate is raising or eliminating the FICA wage cap. Since the whole plan is designed to provide for the ‘average’ worker, such a cap is perfectly reasonable.
But eliminating the wage cap would have the effect of also raising the future benefits paid out [if the plan’s inherent fairness is retained], said benefits being based on a persons wage history over their careers.
The current maximum SS monthly payouts are ~$3.5-4.5K/mo, with the average payouts ~$1.6/mo.
For those in the higher, possibly ‘uncapped range’, this means that they would be receiving enormous monthly payout amounts upon retirement.
Which isn’t the purpose of the plan, and certainly wouldn’t be popular with most workers.
And if the ‘uncapped’ weren’t paid fairly, the whole thing would be viewed as a ‘taxing scheme’ and surely killed; which is the Rethugs ongoing perpetual goal.
.
Although, as someone who always reached the cap by ~the middle of the year, in retrospect I wouldn’t mind today receiving even [much] more than that [limited] maximum after paying in even more over my careers.. in addition to my other pensions.
[and I have two rather large boats [not counting dinghies and canoe]]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Insurance_Contributions_Act
8https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Wage_Base
https://www.ssa.gov/oact/cola/cbb.html
https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/COLA/Benefits.html
https://www.bing.com/search?q=social%20security%20payment%20amount
Sandridge, thank you so much for the wonderful deep dives you give us.
9I have seen this in the comments regarding the auto-workers’ wins over of the Big 3 via the UAW. They think because the auto-workers got something that, they themselves, will lose something. The comments went so far as to call for the Big 3 to start moving even more production to Mexico in order to punish the union members. This is how insidious the lie of “zero sum game” is.
10Very good discussion. Early in the Reagan years, from what I’ve read, the big 3 conservative issues were abortion, busing and prayers in school. I think 2 of the 3 are still important to them (busing not so much, I think). Nick, your last paragraph mentions but just a few examples of their hot buttons because there are so many others. In between each example, you could add, Democrats are to blame and we loathe them.
11I also found the article below very timely because it’s a big deal still today concerning racism.
https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/
Sandridge,
12I agree with most of what you say, but soc sec only pays a return of 3%, far below average market returns the last 50+ years. I’d rather have a lower FICA payment and take any over-the-cap money and buy stock.
PS, I have no boats. I once canoed the Boundary Waters in a canoe for two weeks. I wore a life vest for two weeks. Except at night when I slept on dry land. If this landlubber has spare change it doesn’t go toward anything that floats!
I ain’t no socialist. I am, though, a democratic socialist.
13Virginia @9, Gollee, thanks! Always hope that the effort is worth it.
TJ @10, Exactly! I even worked with union members who thought like that, and thought that they could afford to vote for the Rethuglikans.
And for a while after high school, I was a UAW Local 600 member at the Ford Rouge Plant [making ’66 Mustangs].
I later worked at the MBT Fairborn office directly across Michigan Ave. from the Ford HQ [the Glass House that you still see on the news].
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_River_Rouge_complex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_World_Headquarters
Rick @12, SS/FICA is an ‘average’ plan for the average working stiff; not designed to be a ‘market killer’, but more of an insurance plan.
14And as such it’s also a rock steady performer [apparently now needing a little tweak, because we’re all living longer and better than previously]. Unlike the very risky and totally timing dependent markets. What if your retirement comes in an extended downturn? You’re screwed.
Besides, there is absolutely nothing preventing you from investing however much of your income in those markets on your own.
Personally, I became very skeptical of them, seeing way too much insider WS manipulation in favor of the big players, to the detriment of us average ones. I got out decades ago, went into real estate, nothing more stable than dirt and bricks.
I was practically born on the water, used to spend lots of time on it, not so much lately [thanks to Hurricane Harvey]. B.O.A.T.– Bring Out Another Thousand, AKA- a hole in the water that you dump money into… Spending my kids inheritances; hey, they’re mostly better off than I was at their ages.
Steve from Beaverton @11, RE: ‘bussing’/’busing’?
The Rethuglikans have simply subsumed the old bussing deal into the much wider ‘school vouchers’ and xtian theocracy strategies that they are steadily getting rammed into our nation.
Best that y’all have some exit options ready, for when they turn the USA into a Xtianist E-ban-hellical Paradise. Because everyone to the left of them are headed for certain elimination in their truebeliever world.
15Thank you, Sandridge! I agree with Virginia@#9–I really appreciate your in-depth explanations of the way the US safety net works/is supposed to work. Unfortunately, despite the Christo-fascist threat to it all, we’re too old and not wealthy enough to go somewhere else and start over. We’re going to be stuck here with the other broke leftists, fighting it out. For all our sakes, I hope the “Rethuglicans,” as you aptly call them, ultimately lose their fight to take over the country.
16thatotherjean @16, Thank you too. And being prepared to be “fighting it out” will require some armament, so be equipped and ready when it comes.
17We could actually vanquish them, if our superior numbers are actually prepared for waging their ‘wet dream’ of ‘destroying the libs’.