the author is focused on finite games, which are games that you play to win. but it's interesting to think about applying the same logic to infinite games, where the goal is to keep playing forever.
For instance, capitalism is a game that most players assume we'll just keep playing. How do you deal with some players having an advantage? Currently, the advantage only compounds (literally, ie compound interest). What if instead, the game became more difficult for those players, as discussed in the article?
I think you're basically describing egalitarianism, correct me if I'm wrong. I'd recommend Rawls as good philosophical material on the subject. Always been how I view the world personally and I think people underestimate how much of it could be compatible with free markets and a good deal of general and important freedoms. Of course that's a much longer debate.
To get back to the point, what the author describing is also egalitarian. I think people are generally more interested in it with a game because of the finite setting. Golf handicaps are a perfect example that would have fit well into the article. People get more wary as the scope expands.
There are also a variety of other perspectives worth reading; I found Tony Smith's Beyond Liberal Egalitarianism. Marx and Normative Social Theory in the Twenty-First Century (Brill, 2017) to be a great counter-point to both Rawls and Nozick.
Is capitalism actually assumed to go on forever though? The idea of a post scarcity society isn't new. Hell, Marx's presentation of how communism would arise was largely rooted in the idea that capitalism would increase efficiency to the point that it would no longer make sense to follow its model any longer.
To continue the game theory tilt, the problem with making the game harder as the player advantage increases is that it disincentivises the player from seeking advantage at all.
In the theoretical game of "capitalism" this sounds like a good idea, but in the real world a government that imposes these kinds of game restrictions through something like taxes only forces the advantaged players to pull out of the "game" completely (a nett negative for those reliant on their advantage long term) and move their advantage to another "game".
This isn't necessarily a bad thing though, so long as the vast majority of players still in the game have enough resource to continue playing comfortably.
> but in the real world a government that imposes these kinds of game restrictions through something like taxes only forces the advantaged players to pull out of the "game" completely
Given that there is plenty of evidence that relative deprivation is a major source of disutility, getting them to exclude themselves from the social milieu in which other people exist would be a net win, though less than that of them staying and complying. But, objectivist fantasy novels aside, there's not a lot of evidence that that's a significant effect in the real world.
The people that are actually most successful in modern society understand the role society plays in the utility they derive from success a lot better than some of the wannabes that imagine how they would deal with similar success.
I largely agree, but would just clarify that the players in any economy, capitalist or not, can be both people and companies/legal entities. The more globally oriented modern society means that any player of sufficient resource can implement multiple, compartmentalised strategies for various aspects of that resource (eg. various taxes, corporate structure, government incentives) under differing rulesets.
If a ruleset becomes too onerous (which there is evidence for in modern settings like Zimbabwe or Venezuela) then a player may decide that the utility of the society is not worth the loss in resource and remove themselves from a game which enforces such a ruleset. In all other cases though I agree completely with your insight.
> but in the real world a government that imposes these kinds of game restrictions through something like taxes only forces the advantaged players to pull out of the "game" completely (a nett negative for those reliant on their advantage long term) and move their advantage to another "game".
This would be true only if profits are the only motivation for humans to do anything... and that is not true.
Okay, I'll clarify with an example: Apple is a company, and they care about the growth and general value of themselves as a company. Let's say this can be measured as their NAV (simplistic I know, but it suffices) which is what the market will assess them on. Profits absolutely are the motivation for Apple, as with most other companies that make up the microeconomy of what I'm calling here a "game", or nation/jurisdiction (because each jurisdiction has a different set of rules for the game, called the jurisdictional law).
Unlike other companies, though, Apple has now grown to a size where we can say that they have a very strong advantage in this "game", the American market, but there exists a strategy such that they're able to maximise their reward output by switching "games". Since they're a rational player they do so, and switch their tax jurisdiction, or "game", to Ireland, who plays by a different set of rules.
This isn't a perfect example because I don't think the United States penalises companies based on their performance through tax, but if Apple is already doing this in such a situation what would happen if the United States did implement a progressive tax rate on companies [0]? Now consider how many individuals rely on the existence of Apple within the American "game", and how many may or may not be affected by a full move out of said "game" (again, a silly example I know, but I hope it makes the point clear).
[0] The US may actually do this already and I'm just not aware of it. If so, feel free to correct me.
For instance, capitalism is a game that most players assume we'll just keep playing. How do you deal with some players having an advantage? Currently, the advantage only compounds (literally, ie compound interest). What if instead, the game became more difficult for those players, as discussed in the article?