Actually, I think that chess is a great analogy. Countries play at economics, but eventually, all lose and go broke. The game is then reset. Economics always wins.
Politics and control are merely maneuvers in attempts to win the game, or to change the rules, but the rules cannot be changed, and the game cannot be won. Eventually, people make mistakes, the wrong tactics are tried (usually again and again), and a country loses.
Many tactics, like printing scrip (paper money) and debasing the currency is merely an acknowledgment that one is losing. You are then sacrificing pieces in order to buy more time, retreating and trying to postpone the eventual loss. None of this is new.
The only way to win is to educate the children in history, which rarely happens. Even when it does happen, it is never sustained. Always people come along who think they’re so smart. They come up with something they think is new, as if the billions who came before them have not already thought of it. Then, the decline begins.
