Finite and Infinite Games

by James P. Carse

When we ask precisely how a society will go about preserving its citizens’ property, we can expect the reply that it will do so by the use of force. This reply introduces a dilemma. While it is true that there are ways of forcibly restraining a thief, it is also true that no amount of force can lead the Artful Dodger truly to acknowledge a gentleman’s title to the handkerchief in his pocket. Until the young ruffian is persuaded freely to respect that title, he will remain a thief. By extension, this observation applies to the society as a whole. There is no effective pattern of entitlement in a society short of the free agreement of all opponents that the titles to property are in the hands of the actual winners. No force will establish this agreement. Indeed, the opposite is the case: It is agreement that establishes force. Only those who consent to a society’s constraints see them as constraints—that is, as guides to action and not as actions to be opposed. Those who challenge the existing pattern of entitlements in a society do not consider the designated officers of enforcement powerful; they consider them opponents in a struggle that will determine by its outcome who is powerful. One does not win by power; one wins to be powerful.

Venkat Rao riffs on this in The Gervais Principle.