The battle between Capitalism and Socialism has its roots in the Struggle of the Classes. Capitalism supports the UpperClass, The Masters, The Male. Socialists support the UnderClass, the Poor, The Slaves, the Female.
To solve the current crisis we have to leave this Struggle behind. We have to stop the Competitive Finite Game of Master and Slave and start to Play the Infinite Game of the Creator.
The Rich and the Poor are always competing because everybody believes something, The Cake, is Fixed and the Cake has to be divided between a Fixed amount of people. The Left, The Socialists, believes everybody has to have the same piece of the Cake.
The Capitalists, The Right, don’t agree with this. They believe you have to do something, to work hard, to own a piece of the cake. The harder you work the bigger the piece you get.
It is rather easy to divide a cake without getting into a Conflict. One person has to divide, the other has to chose. When you are Poor you believe the Rich divide the cake and you are Left with what is Left for you. The Left believe that the Right is doing nothing. The Poor are just collecting. The Right believes the same.
The Right believe the Capitalistic Society gives everybody the same opportunity. The Left know it is very difficult to move in one lifetime from the UnderClass to the MiddleClass or Higher.
They want to speed up the movement of the classes by providing free education and tax facilities. The Rich don’t like to pay taxes to help the Poor. They think poor people are losers because they are the winners.
The Sad thing is that a Movement Up of a certain Class always creates a new UnderClass. The New Underclass is probably much richer than the Old Underclass but this does not matter. When you are Poor you always want to move Up and when you are Rich you don’t want to go Down.
When a new Underclass is established the Fight to move Up starts all over again. This is the main reason why History moves in Cycles.
In the end it all comes down to Setting Priorities. The Right want to stimulate the Entrepreneurs directly. The Left want to stimulate the Infrastructures that stimulate the Entrepreneurs. The Right act on the Short Term. The Left have a Long Term Perspective. The Majority of the Humans Beings don’t like to wait too long. They want “it” now. This is the cause of all the major conflicts in History.
Capitalism and Socialism are two sides of the same coin. They are a product of the Industrial Revolution. Before this Revolution the Aristocracy was in Power. The Aristocracy was removed by the French Revolution in 1789. During the Industrial Revolution the MiddleClass, the Bourgeoisie, the rich Merchants, moved Up. The Industrial Revolution was not a Technical revolution but a Social Revolution.
During the Industrial Revolution the Underclass of the Aristocracy, The Serfs, also went Up. They (Masters and Slaves) created a completely New Underclass outside the Western Territory. This territory is called the Underdeveloped Countries.
Although Many people Moved Up in the West, the Master/Slave-relationship persisted. The Serfs of the Aristocracy were transformed into the Serfs of the Factory, the Serfs of the Mass Market and the Serfs of the Mass Media.
Slave and Master play a simple game, the game of Control and Allowing Control. When Slaves believe they are not Slaves anymore the Struggle to Move Up simply stops.
The Industrial Revolution has provided a brilliant toolset to deceive the Slaves. Examples are Democracy, Mass Consumption and Mass Media. At this moment a new method is developed called Mind Control.
The Class Struggle is a perfect example of a Game called the Political Game. In this Game The Master, Manipulates a Group, The Slaves, to accept a general Principle (Law, Model). The Game of Politics resolves the conflict between Principles and Opinions. Opinions (e)Value-ate a Principle, A Norm. Values are part of the Emotional System of a Human Being.
The Game of Politics is really a Conflict between the Emotions and the Expectation, The Power that wants to Control the Future.
Sadly enough the conflict between the Emotion and the Power of Control is always won by the Ego of Control because the Emotions are Collaborative until the Limits are Reached.
When the Power to Control the Future is not used for the Benefit of the Whole it will finally start a Revolution, a huge Transformation. When this transformation is postponed too long the Destructive Violent Emotions, the “Reptile Layer“, take over the Control of the Human being. The only thing that is left for the Controlling Power is to react with Violence. It is very difficult to end the Spiral of Violence.
At this moment we are moving into a new stage of the Long Term Cycle of Culture. The Industrial Revolution has ended. It has ended because we have reached the Limits. When the Limits are reached the Cycle has to Jump to another Level. There are two possibilities. The Cycle jumps Up or it jumps Down.
When it jumps Down the Old Culture is totally destroyed. This has happened often in Human History. It is very clear that Western Culture will be destroyed when we go on the way we are going. The only solution to survive is to Play another type of Game, the Infinite Game. When this happens the Cycle moves Up to another level of Consciousness.
If the resources are fixed we play a Finite Game. Finite games are the familiar contest of everyday life, the games we play in human relations. business, politics and educational contexts- games with winners and losers, a beginning and an end. In the end a finite game is always played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of the continuation off the play.
Infinite Games are the Game of the Creator, Spirit. They are Infinite because the amount of Ideas is infinite. The most beautiful example of an infinite game is Life itself.
| Finite game | Infinite game |
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Surprise is a crucial element in most finite games. If we are not prepared to meet each of the possible moves of an opponent, our chances of losing are most certainly increased. Surprise in a finite play is the triumph of the past over the future. A finite player is not only trained to anticipate every future possibility, but to control the future, to prevent it from altering the past. Infinite players, on the other hand, continue their play on the expectation of being surprised.
If surprise is no longer possible, all play ceases. Surprise causes the finite play to an end; it is the reason for infinite play to continue. Because infinite players prepare themselves to be surprised by the future, they play in complete openness.
What one wins in a finite game is a Status, a Title. A title is the acknowledgement of others that one has been the winner of a particular game. Titles are public. They are for others to notice. Since titles are temporary, but exist only so far as they are acknowledged, we must find means to guarantee the memory of them. People are always looking for ways to prolong their Status even after Death (Biography, Statue).
Infinite players have nothing but their Names. Names, like titles, are given. When a person is known by title, the attention is on a completed past, on a game already concluded, and not therefore to be played again. When a person is known by name, the attention of others is on an open future.
From the outset of finite play each part or position must be taken up with certain seriousness: players must see themselves as teacher, as light heavyweight, as mother, as architect. In the proper exercise of such roles we positively believe we are the persons those Roles do portray. Even more: we make those roles believable to others.
Persons who assume a role must suspend their freedom with a proper seriousness in order to act as the role requires. Self-veiling is a contra dictionary act: a free suspension of our freedom. Infinite players do not eschew the performed roles of finite play, because finite games can be played within infinite games.
On the contrary, infinite players enter into finite games with all the appropriate energy and self-veiling, but they do so without the seriousness of finite players. They freely use Masks in their social engagements, but not without acknowledging to themselves and others that they are masked. For that reason they regard each participant in finite play as that person playing and not as a role played by someone.
The Infinite Games are called Design (Transforming Ideas into a Structure), Invention (Putting Ideas into Practice) and the most beautiful of all, the Game of Culture, the Game to Create New Games. This happens when Spirit cooperates with the Emotions.
To survive the clash of Western Culture we have to play a Very Strange Game. We have to Play Playing. Playing a Play is the Play of Children.
To play the play we have to accept that all the Infinite Games, the Cultures of the Earth, have Invented and Designed their own Games . When we accept the Great Big Melting Pot of the Earth (the Cauldron) we will see that the solutions for the current crisis are everywhere to find, especially in the Underdeveloped Countries! There is really no need to move Up and Down all the time.
We could finally step out of the Cycle into Unknown Territory and be Surprised to discover completely new ways to live and enjoy life.
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Humans are the most advanced toolmakers in nature. The main reason is that they are the less specialized organisms. They need tools to survive.