Introduction
Thomas Huxley was once reputed to have said, “The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the Universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of Nature and the player on the other side is hidden from us.” All those with a passion for the game, from mere beginner to Candidate contender with a 2800 Elo rating, believe in the mystical quality of this most cerebral of board games.
Chess is all-encompassing, the world encapsulated on 64 squares. As the only American to ever break the Soviet monopoly on chess, Bobby Fischer once remarked in utter seriousness, “Chess is life.” True enough, this apparently placid game has drawn comparisons with warfare and court politics. By its reliance on the individual struggling against unknowable moves by the opposition, great odds, and hideous complexities, chess can be likened to one consumer confronting the multiple rewards and punishment of economic life.
Only the Brainy Need Apply
That bum that seems to beat all comers to his corner of the park for small stakes is no successful gambler. He is, in all likelihood, a washed-out club or national master, technically proficient at the game but otherwise a victim of the rat race that is life. But you can be sure he is neither dull nor illiterate because keeping up with every new theoretical wrinkle or newly-discovered move in the game takes up as much study time as your Economics professor needs to do.
Yes, celebrities like Heidi Klum are avid chess players. But she is an exception to the rule that many great minds enjoy chess, even as a leisurely pastime. Nobel laureates like Albert Einstein (physics), Max Planck (physics), Sinclair Lewis (literature), Gabriel Garcia Marquez (literature), William Yeats (literature), Samuel Beckett (literature), William Golding (literature), John Steinbeck (literature), Bertrand Russell, chemists, and physicists loved chess.
The field of economics itself is no exception: Among the economics Nobel prize winners who love chess are John Nash, John Harsanyi, Edward Prescott, Gerard Debreu, John Harsanyi, James Heckman, and Simon Herbert.
Chess stimulates the restless minds of all those who created the frontrunners of the information technology and Internet age: Microsoft (yes, Gates and Allen both), Oracle, eBay, YouTube, PayPal, and Verisign. Steve Jobs of Apple Inc. does not, but he is more the artist-maverick in the field.
Permutations and Endless Networks of Variables
Chess seems straightforward enough: move a piece, wait for your opponent to respond, move another and see the game through to a glorious win, an ignominious loss, or an unsatisfying draw. But as soon as you begin to enjoy winning at the game, you realize how the other player has several options at his disposal, you may have two or three good moves to counter what he might do, and your opponent apparently has at least one good reply to each; then the permutations begin to look endless. And yet, you are only thinking two moves ahead. How much more when plotting a six-move mating combination to which your opponent can reply strongly at every turn?
For an economist to study production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services, conceive meaningful relationships among hundreds of variables, require a supercomputer to model them, and subsequently attempt policy recommendations for every variable in real-time requires at least as much mental acuity and self-discipline as a chess player has.
Conflict and Competition
Chess can be enjoyed as a battle of wits that plays out over mere minutes. Here is a tactical showpiece for the general to deploy his foot soldiers towards the enemy territory, threaten to outflank with cavalry, open lines for, or bombard with, heavy artillery, and roll over a weak position with elite troops (the Queen). At the same time, chess is a study in Byzantine politics and strategy for a monarch who needs protection until it is time for the endgame, his consort who had no formal powers but needed to be an energetic manipulator to get her way, the bishop who moved on other pathways to assist the court, etc.
By comparison, Adam Smith was a latecomer in recognizing the virtues of private competition and comparative advantage among nations. Modern economics may not seem adversarial at all, even compared to the Great Depression when protectionism and “beggar thy neighbor” policies doubtless prolonged that sorry period until postwar prosperity blossomed. From multilateral financial institutions (like the IMF) down to monetary authorities and local town councils, there is an abiding belief that unfettered competition will benefit all in a rising tide of wealth. And if those who are too weak or incompetent fall by the wayside, even prosperity has its casualties, too.
Theory and Practice: The Inexact Science
The game and the social science share a limitation of needing to allocate and manage limited resources. With only 16 pieces to his name, the chess player must position them where they will do the most good and put maximum pressure on the enemy. In turn, the economist needs the utmost logical and abstract thinking, decision-making, and creativity to propose a policy that leverages self-interest towards creating wealth and fostering the common good.
Both fields share an interest in theory and policy tools thought to maximize success in implementation. The American Morphy pioneered in positional play in contrast with the Latvian Tal, who was the prime exponent of high-risk sacrifices and attacks. There are dozens of ways to respond to an opening King’s Pawn thrust: the Alekhine opening, the French, 4 Knights, Guioco Piano, Ruy Lopez, Center Counter, Pirc, Caro-Kann, and many variations of the Sicilian besides. For Fischer and the Englishman Nigel Short, any strategy or tactic was possible as long as one got results, winning the game.
Economics has no shortage of theories, too: Classical political economy, Marxism, the neoclassical, Keynesian, the bi-coastal “Saltwater school” versus the “Freshwater” Chicago school, post-Keynesian economics, monetarism, new classical economics, and the supply-side economics last seen during the Reagan presidency. Unable to manipulate variables in real-world experiments, economists aim for predictive virtue via observational studies and input-output modeling. But, as the situation with chess-playing computers programmed with all openings and significant games, logical rules and theory cannot always surmount human creativity, risky behavior, and downright and deviant tactics.