Let’s Play the Game-of-Life

Giving $15 or $20 to a hundred candidates by hundreds of thousands of people, while probably necessary, isn’t what will break the oligarchic locomotive. It hasn’t been the winning element in many races; it has simply been pay-to-play for candidates. The DNC needs to understand that the party and its cash-pile aren’t what wins and loses elections. It’s voters – living beings.

That money has always been so important is pretty well-established. We are so deeply immersed in our nearly universal belief the money is how we measure ourselves and others, that when we ask, “What are worth?” we don’t mean, “How much do you contribute to your various communities?” We don’t mean “How are you doing with the condition of your soul?” We mean, “How much have you got in the bank?” I once saw a church that had opened in an old bank building. How poignant!
We aren’t all this way. Some individuals are or have been in the past. Perhaps when they die, they should have their remains buried in a safe-deposit box. Oh, wait! They do. They call that bank a mausoleum. Maybe that should be “mau$oleum.” However, for much of the world and a lot of the U.S., this is how it is – some living humans and some walking ATM’s. The point is, more money isn’t going to be the critical straw that breaks the oligarchs’ back. What is going to be required is that all the people who understand that we are not worth any amount of money.

Money isn’t worth anything. Money is paper. Money is numbers recorded is electrons. Money is the set of pieces in a Game-of-Life. Money is not really real.

The greedy have for millennia gathered up all they could of the necessities of our corporeal lives—food, clothing and shelter – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness—fenced it in, guarded it with a chosen few—knights, armies, oligarchs—and dispensed something like Monopoly money. If one gave much or all of what one had or produced, one could be given a few such money tokens to buy back some of the products of their own labor. The masters in the castles—the rich, rationalized by the notion that “Greed is good.” (Calvinism)—need only figure out how to keep the masses sufficiently oblivious to the real rules of the game. “Ignorance is the handmaiden of tyranny.” (B. Franklin – maybe) The cleverest part is that, even today we, who produce the wealth, are all allowed to deceive ourselves—believe ourselves empowered by using our tokens among one another, just like the big boys.

When did this start? Somewhere between the cave and the Bible – give or take. And what do we do about it now? We give tokens received from the masters, for our production of their goods and services, to campaign funds that we hope will get people elected who will change that distribution of wealth. Why would one think that? Money is not leadership, but it is power, if we allow it to be. The exchange of money is the game of the rich. Exchanging a little money to change the rules for the real exchange of money is probably doomed to failure.

How likely is it that one who is elected going to change any part of the system he thinks got him elected? After all, how often have people in positions of power been successful in altering the exchange of money as they said they would – or even, would have liked to have done, after being elected? How likely are we to know the real feeling of someone running for office in any case? Might they not be just as blind as anyone else to seeing the contrast of worth and wealth? Soul and credit score? How many politicians have simply lied to us outright about what they planned to do for us and how it would benefit us? How many have simply lied repeatedly?
Marx actually did have something right. Take money out of the system altogether and let government coordinate the production and welfare of it all. All players win. Nice idea; works in the commune, but Lenin demonstrated that it breaks down at scale. Communism is almost a conspiracy theory now. Did what they said ever really happen? It may have happened in name, but there was never any real economic breakthrough. It was just a novel venture in tyranny.

“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.” —
Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol.

The vulnerability in this system is ignorance then. Tyranny of any kind depends on ignorance. The master will always attack the enlightened and when trying to gain control will go after the informed. Killing off the educated might be a little awkward, however. Some of those educated might be the ones carrying out such a task. Oops. A better approach is to pull back resources to schools, control the media, make college only for the already rich. This is one way to help secure one’s dictatorship.

To change the situation will take time. To change the situation will take thinking. To change the situation will take patience. To change the situation will take a whole lot of committed people. People need to be talking to people – talking one-on-one, in small groups, on zoom conversations. People need to be talked with, not at, not to. People need not be told what to do, unless they ask. Being told what to do erodes trust. People need to be helped to understand what might or will happen, why that might happen, when, where and to whom. The press can’t do anything like the job of achieving this when no person, neighbor or friend is talking with them about it. People can certainly disagree about expectations or opinions, but facts are facts. Facts can be denied, as they often are, even when they’re biting one on the nose. And people should be encouraged to ask candidates about issues they have with what they hear. Mostly people should be encouraged to demand of candidates and representative when they are not there answering questions, “Why not?” Even if all one can do is to help people understand how the Game-of-Life economy works in broad strokes and how it has been in play though out history, one has moved the dial. So, yes, it will take more than one. People need to understand the basic rules of the game, because, like it or not, we are all players in the game. It is not a strategy to change votes; it is a strategy to level the playing field. It is a strategy to help restore any semblance of real democracy. Information – the truth makes players stronger.

Blaming and shaming and collecting campaign contributions will accomplish little to change things. Democracy depends on an informed electorate. Give up on monetized isolation voting. Build community. Some will not come, not listen, not anything. Well, they won’t. The ones that do show up and do listen and do think will therefore gain right away. Inform people. Empower them. They will make the right choices, and they will look for and deserve the right results.