Is education a zero-sum game?
Opportunity makes a thief. Francis Bacon A zero-sum game is one in which there is a winner and a loser; if you haven't won, you've lost. The term derives from game theory and economics and describes a situation in which one person's gain utility (the ability to satisfy his or wants) is exactly balanced by another's loss of utility. In The Uses of Pessimism, Scruton points out that much wrong-heading thinking and behaviour derives from what he calls the 'zero-sum fallacy' where all gains are paid for by the losers. Society therefore is a zero-sum game, in which costs and benefits balance out, and [...]