The Game

One day when I felt he was in a good mood and wanted to talk, I finally asked him, “What is The Game?”He smiled as if he had been waiting for this question, and was impressed that I finally asked it.
“In it’s current form, you know it as capitalism”, he explained. “Historically, it’s the game humans play, which created the great civilizations of the world. It has been carefully crafted and refined over millennia.” He paused to give it some thought, then continued, “The Game is how we manage society. Currently, it’s foundation is the market economy, and the practice of exchange. A system to perfect self interest.”
“What does that mean?”, I asked.
“The act of exchange favors self interest. It alters motivations and incentives, to promote self interest, while reducing altruism and sharing. It allows us to favor those who are self interested, and to better manage those who are not.”
“You're saying the you manage the human population?”, I asked.
“Maybe I should explain that the game, as we know it, is not what you have known. People who you refer to as rich and poor have always lived in separate societies. From the beginning of civilization, those who are superior have always managed humanity. Capitalism is just the latest tool for organizing and managing large populations of people. To us, it is a game. Like a board game, we control the moves of pieces. Every human, who is not moving the pieces, is a piece on the board.“
“The rules and the board have changed over the years as technologies have changed, in order to maintain the balance necessary to drive the whole of society forward. Occasionally we refine the rules to stabilize society or gain more benefit for ourselves. These changes have become more subtle over the years as techniques are refined.”
I asked, “What do you mean by technologies changing? How does technological change affect society?”
“For example, when people started mass producing rifles, in the late 16th century, we could no longer control the population through force and slavery, as we were used to, so things changed. Warfare changed, governments changed, society changed. The rule of law became dominant as kings and slavery went out of fashion. Governments became democratic. The market took priority in controlling people’s lives.”
“Similarly, as the printing press became ubiquitous, dissent increased, but so did advertising. We then used economics to control the publishing industry. We allowed people to print what they wanted but distribution would be limited without support from a major distributor.
“The internet gave people greater possibilities in communication it also gave us greater surveillance and control through social networking. In each instance we have had to change the rules of society to better manage the changes created by new technologies. It has been this way since the beginning.”