Economics for the Greater Good.

Its probably the Harry Potter nerd in me, but I often think of Dumbledore and the Ministry of Magic whenever I hear "For the Greater Good." To me, this saying always has communist connotations, so I'm always looking at it in a negative light. But that is not necessarily the best. Honestly, Marxism aside, isn't it a perfect ideal that we should all aim for? If everyone replaces their selfish ways with acts for the greater good, wouldn't we all be lifted up by eachother? 

A little historical tidbit that I stumbled upon. Reminiscent of my last post, I looked up the mathematical genius (and *ahem* lunatic) John Forbes Nash, Jr. You might remember his biography in the film A Beautiful Mind. Well, this guy was really quite the thinker. One of his great "breakthroughs" in his learning  was a kind of applied mathematics called "game theory."  Game theory attempts to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, or games, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others. In other words, we must do what is best for ourselves and what is best for the group simultaneously.







You may remember the scene in A Beautiful Mind in which Nash is in a bar with his college buddies when  three girls walk in. One gorgeous blonde, and two "okay" brunettes. (Rolls eyes) Anyways, he tries to tell his college buddies the system, saying something along the lines of,  "Here are the rules. Each of you wants to talk to the blonde. If more than one of you tries to talk to her, however, she will be put off and talk to no one. At that point it will also be too late to talk to a brunette, as no one likes being second choice. Assume anyone who starts out talking to a brunette will succeed. So you must go for the brunettes first. Everyone will have a date."


My point for this post is that we should apply this to economics and strive to strategically depend upon each other. Economics is, in a way, all about relationships and tradeoffs, so understanding the logic behind those would help enrich this world's international economy for the greater good. This becomes especially relevant in a world where there are many who are creating free content and we are all downloading things, and the economy of information is changing drastically.