The Politician's Dilemma

Are you familiar with the prisoner's dilemma? If not, here's a simplified version of it:

Jack and Jill are arrested for a weapons violation (a minor offense), though both are also bank robbers, but the government doesn't have enough evidence to convict them of bank robbery. The minor offense is punishable by 1 year in jail while the bank robbery is punishable by five years in jail.

The district attorney comes to Jack and says, if you confess to the bank robbery and implicate Jill, I'll let you off the hook for the weapons charge and I'll give you two years for the bank robbery. If Jill doesn't also confess and I have to use you to testify, you'll get away with probation and not serve any time at all. Meanwhile, the DA also meets with Jill and makes the same deal with her.

Since Jack and Jill can't talk with each other, they have to make their own decisions. Here are the options and the results:

Jack confesses and Jill stays quiet: Jack gets 0 years and Jill gets 5 years (total of 5 years)
Jack and Jill both confess: Jack gets 2 years and Jill gets 2 years (total of 4 years
Jack stays quiet and Jill confesses: Jack gets 5 years and Jill gets 0 years (total of 5 years)
Jack and Jill both stay quiet: Jack gets 1 year and Jill gets 1 year (total of 2 years)

It's obvious that to minimize the amount of years in jail, Jack and Jill should both stay quiet, but people don't work like that. Take Jack for instance: he has two options - confess or stay quiet. His choice, though, is going to be based on whether or not Jill confesses or stays quiet. If Jill confesses, Jack can either stay quiet (and get 5 years) or else also confess (and get 2 years) - it would be better for Jack to confess and minimize his time in prison. If Jill stays quiet, Jack can either confess (and get 0 years) or else also stay quiet (and get 1 year) - it would be better for Jack to confess. Thus, it's better for Jack, no matter what Jill says in either situation, to confess. Since the same concept applies to Jill, both will make their decisions based on the other's suspected actions and then they will both stay behind bars for 2 years.

While this self-interest could easily be solved by simply working together (something the DA obviously won't allow), in daily life we are faced with similar problems all the time.


A large concern in medicine right now is that drug-resistant bacteria is developing because of the over-use of antibiotics. The belief is that the best way to keep these bugs from developing a resistance to certain drugs is to limit their use to when they are definitely necessary. Many doctors believe that every time you get a stuffy nose you don't need to pop a bunch of amoxicillin just in case it's really some sort of sinus infection, even though it might help if it is an infection. The belief is that, since a drug resistant strain of bacteria comes only from a one in a trillion (or much smaller) mutation, we should limit the unnecessary use of antibiotics to lower the chances a bug has to develop a resistance. Let's look at this in the same sort of situation as the prisoner's dilemma.

Let's, for arguments sake, say that each time I get a stuffy nose there's a 10% chance of it being a sinus infection (for me it's probably less than that, but for my wife, it's much more). If I take the antibiotics right when my nose is stuffy, then, I have a 10% chance of stopping the runny nose before it really becomes an issue. If I don't take the drugs, the sinus infection and the cold both cause me the same headaches and discomfort and are gone in a week. If the sinus infection becomes worse, I can still take the antibiotics after the week and I will have suffered just as much as a regular cold.

Now, there is also a downside to all this - every time I take the drug, there's a one in a trillion chance that a bacteria will develop a resistance to this antibiotic. Thus, I have a 10% chance of avoiding a week of discomfort compared to a 1/1,000,000,000,000 chance of helping create a drug-resistant strain of a bacteria that I may or may not ever get again.

If cost isn't a factor (and with generic drugs it really isn't), I should take the antibiotics every time I get a stuffy nose, because there's a pretty good chance I will avoid discomfort and a very, very small chance that I will help create a drug-resistant strain of the bacteria, and, even if I do, I will probably never get the same infection again.

While this makes sense to me, it also makes perfect sense to the other 6 billion people in the world. If everyone follows suit, it will only be a matter of time until a truly drug-resistant or even drug-immune bacteria develops. So, while there is good evidence that limiting the use of antibiotics is good on a macro scale, on a micro scale (me and my runny nose), it's a little bit different. Here are my options: if everyone keeps taking lots of antibiotics when they don't need them, my taking them for a stuffy nose won't make a difference since the damages has already been done; or, if everyone else has stopped taking antibiotics to avoid mutating a strain of bacteria, my one in a trillion chance of creating that mutant strain is negligible, so I might as well take them for my stuffy nose.

The only way to correct this problem is to repose the choices as follows: either you take the drugs and risk, along with the rest of the world, developing a deadly bacteria or else you, and the rest of the world, only take antibiotics when they are absolutely necessary and the risk of a deadly bacteria is greatly reduced.

If you think it would be hard for Jack and Jill to communicate around the barrier of a district attorney, try getting 6 billion people to all act in harmony. Or, for that matter, try to just get the prescribing physicians in Bangalore to think about antibiotics the same way as the prescribing physicians in Atlanta - either way, it's quite a problem.


Moving to politics, there's a pretty big dilemma facing any presidential candidate - how to effectively make a change the the government.

The primary problem facing America right now is money. America is bankrupt and has been for many, many years. If it weren't for the collateral she has to offer (millions of people who are not bankrupt by themselves), she wouldn't have been able to get the loans she needs to continue on for the past few decades. Despite this, year after year congress spends more money than they have and the president signs off on the deal. Lately, presidents have figured that if congress can justify a budget, the president isn't going to be the one to stand in the way of it. Here's why:

To get elected, a candidate must be popular among their constituents. For a president to be elected, he must curry favor by promising something. For example, let's look at an issue. Walter, a member of the local school board, believes that the county needs a new high school. The cost of a new high school runs in the millions of dollars and he knows that there are two options: a county bond that will be paid back by the members of his community or else federal money that is based (sometimes loosely) on the taxes that he and his community will pay no matter what. If Candidate X promises to give Walter the federal dollars necessary to build his school, it would make sense to vote for Candidate X to maximize his own personal money. Once Candidate X is elected he has two options: blatantly renege on these promises or else follow through and spend the money that this country doesn't have.

There are numerous ways to overcome this problem. I will address two approaches: the masses approach and the president's approach.

When the people go out and vote, they typically vote on issues - they want to know what their president will doe before they elect him. They are more concerned with what direction the country is headed (or more specifically, how they are doing financially) and less concerned with the steps necessary to go in the desired direction (or more specifically, to insure their own financial security). People aren't electing a leader who will guide the country for four years but they are choosing a referee to manage congress who are operating with the exact same political dilemma. If people quit asking for promises of handouts and instead asked for someone that they would trust to guide them through a storm, a true leader could get elected. Unfortunately, convincing Americans that they are not entitled to promises of handouts is a battle that will take many, many years to effect.

The way for this vicious cycle to be broken, then, lies in the hands of the President of the United States. Whoever that person is, a stringent duty exists to lead this country where it needs to go and not down the path of least-resistance to reelection. The way to bring about this is a two-step process. First, only promise what you can guarantee to provide during the beginning of your tenure. If Candidate X has to promise a thousand new schools to get elected, he should fulfill those promises in the first year or two as president. Second, Candidate X must actively seek to address the problems we're facing. With finances, that would mean vetoing any congressional budget that isn't balanced. A true leader will allow the country to come to a halt for a few days to get congress to act - if the social security office closed because there was no budget, you can be assured that congress would figure out a way to get it past a presidential veto by lowering the amount they are spending.

The short term effect would be that the national politicians would be in a dilemma - make promises to your constituents you know the president will not allow you to keep or else change your ways and only promise what you can guarantee. In the long term, with the federal government limiting their role in purely local matters, federal taxes will drop and local communities will take the lead in building the high schools that only they will use.

The problem began when the national politicians promised the voters things that were only a local matter. Now, we need a leader that will put these concerns back in the hands where they belong.