They are part and parcel of the strategies available to the
players and cannot be arbitrarily ruled out. On the
contrary, their introduction as part of a dominant strategy
will simplify Game theory and make it much more
applicable. In other words: players can choose to compete,
to cooperate and to cooperate in the formation of an
outside agency. There is no logical or mathematical
reason to exclude the latter possibility. The ability to thus
influence the game is a legitimate part of any real life
strategy. Game Theory assumes that the game is a given -
and the players have to optimize their results within it. It
should open itself to the inclusion of game altering or
redefining moves by the players as an integral part of their
strategies. After all, games entail the existence of some
agreement to play and this means that the players accept
some rules (this is the role of the prosecutor in the
Prisoners' Dilemma). If some outside rules (of the game)
are permissible - why not allow the "risk" that all the
players will agree to form an outside, lawfully binding,
arbitration and enforcement agency - as part of the game?
Such an agency will be nothing if not the embodiment, the
materialization of one of the rules, a move in the players'
strategies, leading them to more optimal or superior
outcomes as far as their utility functions are concerned.
Bargaining inevitably leads to an agreement regarding a
decision making procedure. An outside agency, which
enforces cooperation and some moral code, is such a
decision making procedure. It is not an "outside" agency
in the true, physical, sense. It does not "alter" the game
(not to mention its rules). It IS the game, it is a procedure,
a way to resolve conflicts, an integral part of any solution
and imputation, the herald of cooperation, a representative
of some of the will of all the players and, therefore, a part
both of their utility functions and of their strategies to
obtain their preferred outcomes. Really, these outside
agencies ARE the desired outcomes. Once Game Theory
digests this observation, it could tackle reality rather than
its own idealized contraptions.
XLII. Market Impeders and Market Inefficiencies
Even the most devout proponents of free marketry and
hidden hand theories acknowledge the existence of market
failures, market imperfections and inefficiencies in the
allocation of economic resources. Some of these are the
results of structural problems, others of an accumulation
of historical liabilities. But, strikingly, some of the
inefficiencies are the direct outcomes of the activities of
"non bona fide" market participants. These "players"
(individuals, corporations, even larger economic bodies,
such as states) act either irrationally or egotistically (too
rationally).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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