Finite and Infinite Games

by James P. Carse

The titled are powerful. Those around them are expected to yield, to withdraw their opposition, and to conform to their will—in the arena in which the title was won. The exercise of power always presupposes resistance. Power is never evident until two or more elements are in opposition. Whichever element can move another is the more powerful. If no one else ever strove to be a Boddhisattva or the Baton Twirling Champion of the State of Indiana, those titles would be powerless—no one would defer to them. The exercise of power also presupposes a closed field and finite units of time. My power is determined by the amount of resistance I can displace within given spatial and temporal limits. The question is not whether I can lift ten pounds, but whether I can lift ten pounds five feet off the ground in one second—or within some other precise limitation of time and space. The establishment of the limits makes it possible to know how powerful I am in relation to others. Power is always measured in units of comparison. In fact, it is a term of competition: How much resistance can I overcome relative to others? Power is a concept that belongs only in finite play. But power is not properly measurable until the game is completed—until the designated period of time has run out. During the course of play we cannot yet determine the power of the players, because to the degree that it is genuine play the outcome is unknown. A player who is being pushed all over the field by an apparentl...