Peripheral Visions

fragile belief and capable of stretching or contracting.
    In effect, the Image of Limited Good, which was at least partly supported by experience, is no longer true except to the extent we insist on making it so, but it continues to be central to the experience of third world nations. It can only be left behind if we succeed both in leveling off population growth worldwide and in building institutions to reflect nonzero-sum patterns of thought. The discovery on that hike in the Sinai, when I virtually had to be carried by my companions, that what I would have resented at home could be treasured and built upon there gave me a way of understanding social life in which individuals were not defined as losers or winners at one another’s expense. There are many contexts in which it is important to interpret even failure and defeat as part of a valued effort that is beneficial to the whole.
    American society loses immensely by its increasing interpretation of electoral politics in simple win-lose terms. Some campaigns develop the understanding of issues and agenda for the future, providing a broad social benefit, while others degrade the process so that the winner, like so many victors in warfare, conquers a bitter and burnt-over community. The electoral process was designed to create a forum for discussion in which honorable men argued different views and made their choices with mutual respect, not to turn half of all participants into losers, shamed and burdened by debt, yet the process today favors the entry into politics of people who think in zero-sum terms. Only when potential candidates can see their participation as valuable, even when they are defeated, will we have men and women in office who can be concerned for the common good rather than for victory in the next election. My suspicion is that it is exactly this way of formatting the political process that makes it so uninviting to many men and perhaps most women, for neither victory nor defeat seems to offer them what they most value. We live with a tension created by building pluralism on an ancient tradition of exclusive truth.
    The most important arena in which all of us have to operate by a nonzero-sum logic is the environment, sometimes seen as a player and sometimes as a prize. Measures taken to protect the natural world often pose dilemmas like those elaborated in game theory with the classic story called prisoner’s dilemma, in which two suspects for armed robbery are imprisoned separately. If neither confesses, they will both have minimal sentences, simply for carrying weapons. If one turns state’s evidence, he will go free and the other will be in jail for many years. If both confess, both will have jail terms, although slightly shorter ones. Self-interest and suspicion are pitted against trust and the common good. Cooperative strategies often involve smaller gains for each player than the gains of the winner who plays only to win, for cooperation only looks appealing if one adds up the benefit to all participants. Similarly, there are costs in reducing pollution, but if every company in an industry shares those costs, everyone will share the benefit. When some break the rules, however, they may get a jackpot while those who accept them suffer. Every time I accept some small cost or inconvenience to protect the natural world, I am aware that my action not only is ineffectual but works against me—unless everyone else joins in. We need to develop structures that favor cooperation without losing the benefits of competition. It is a matter of institutional design whether to favor those willing to over-power the weak or those who advocate ethical behavior and then cheat.
    Experiments with games modeled on prisoner’s dilemma suggest that repetition and face-to-face familiarity are helpful if players are to learn cooperative strategies. This is very bad news from the game theorists, because as societies grow larger and increasingly complex, cooperation becomes harder. Furthermore, there is a substantial philosophical tradition suggesting that cooperation is somehow unnatural, that nature is red in tooth and claw and the natural relationship of human beings is uncontrolled conflict. With all those stories about enmity between brothers, it is hard to hope for cooperation and mutual help between strangers, yet it does occur, and kinship is an idea as well as a fact of genetics.
    All too often all the players share a value system that works against