This morning I read a supposed quote from Margaret Thatcher which asserted, “There is no such thing as society; there is only the market.”*

It is certainly true that people can find themselves both consumers and consumed in a finite game.

Consumers may want more and create a “healthy market,” but also lay themselves open to the needs of those supplying their consumption – who want to be bigger, produce more, and have more.  Those who want more need an audience or world to notice how big and successful they are, and in turn are vulnerable to the beliefs, feelings, and behaviours of the audience:

‘No one determines who an audience will be.  No
exercise of power can make a world.  A world must
be its own spontaneous source.  “A world worlds”
(Heidigger).  Who must be a world cannot be a world.”

Because the aim of a finite game is to win, markets focus on time amongst other things, and time appears to be in abundance at the beginning of a venture but in short supply towards the end – and that’s when mistakes are made.**
(Notice how your age can be very important in a finite game.)

The infinite player recognises both society and market as expressions of finite games, and whilst recognising that sometimes they will need to play in various finite games, infinite players aim to include as many as possible in an infinite or open-ended game (whether people are older or younger, it is someone’s contribution of art – through their experience and willingness – which is most important).  Two things then follow.  The audience become players (see how companies are now seeking to include customers in a story and produce what customers want), and, infinite players appear to have more time – and could be said to generate time because they are able to continue where others stop.

(*The quote most often comes up with the alternative ending: “There are individual men and women, and there are families.”  See Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational to see what happens when a societal transaction is turned into a market one.)
(**Perhaps politics are the ultimate finite game.  Peace talks over three to four days can struggle towards the end of negotiations as time slips away – for some reason a small number of people from a number of countries cannot be given by their nations to stay as long as necessary, instead being required to return home – apparently because they have something better to do there.  It just seemed strange to me when I wrote it down in this way.)