I like playing board games. It has consistently been one of my favorite hobbies since I was a kid. The evolution of the board game has exploded in the innovation of style and gameplay and many of the new age games have a lot of interaction. An interaction that can lead to one player, with no chance to win the game herself, ending up deciding the outcome of the game for the rest of the players.

Being in that seat of deciding who get to be the winner of the game is both a blessing and a curse. Bribery attempts and loose threats start to pour in: “Hey, I’ll give you a beer if you make move X so I get to win,” “If you don’t do move Y you have to walk back home,” “No more crisps for you in the next game if you don’t do Z“.

After a nail-biter of a game over the course of two hours of tight play by everyone, you get to be the kingmaker by your next move. What do you do in that situation? Is sleeping on the sofa because you screwed over your spouse more appealing than having Jim’s wrath working against you in the next game you play with him?

Some of my gaming groups have been extremely competitive, while others have been more relaxed in spirit – but there is something fundamental about trying to steer the kingmaker over to your side no matter the play environment, everyone at least tries to change the mind of the kingmaker by giving their 2 cents.

I’ve invested a great deal of time reading the game theory literature tackling this phenomenon and the psychology surrounding it. It is a fascinating subject and I quite enjoy when the situation arises where someone is given (or rather, gives herself through poor gameplay) the role of kingmaking in a board game I’m part of, just to see how people interact in the scenario at hand.

Even in the most cutthroat gaming groups, the outcome is surprisingly civil, we just congratulate the winner and reset the game to play another round, or pull out a new game or say good night and by the next game meetup, everything is as good as forgotten. Some old grudges can carry over from one game to the next, of course, but they are rarely spiteful, more humorous.

It is just a game, after all.

In the election and the parliamentary world, there is a great deal of kingmaking going on too – but that is far from a game. There is a lot more at stake. The spoiler effect has made plenty of people angry and political negotiation has marginalized the wishes of the people many times. It has cut rights shorter and given rise to unfair privileges. Done damage.

But, above all, it has given birth to a sketchy concept just by being a possibility in politics:

If my party/politician/representative gets enough leverage, in the form of political numeral advantage, I get a piece of that power by proxy.

You get to wave the magic wand of societal change; at least that is the selling point. Whenever you are given that kind of option it’s easy to fall into traps of some illusion of grandeur or buy into simple-sounding solutions that will have societal changes beyond the reach of your comprehension. You might reactionarily make yourself a better world, but at what cost to others? How will the effects on others circle back to you?

I am constantly stunned when I hear how politicians can with pure confidence and lots of hand gesturing give you their checklist of solutions to any perceived problems of society with no thought about secondary consequences. They are trying to market a product and use every tactic available to sell it. The price put upon others be damned.

This, in effect, gives rise to populism by both the left and the right – the motives might be different, the themes might have different coloring, but it is purely gaming a system of hand counting.

I prefer my game theory better in my board gaming than when its used as a way to restrict my life.

– ALEX UTOPIUM Scandinavian anti-establishment blogger, editor for the Utopium Blog. Counter-economics, agorist-separatism, and free-market advocate.