Art World: Grudger, Sucker, Cheat

In this essay, replete with compelling examples, I make a case for a game-theoretical approach to understanding better the art world. Like J. L. Mackie and Richard Dawkins, who argue that in order to understand an evolutionarily stable moral world, the same ideas that apply there—grudger (reciprocal altruist), sucker (naive altruist), and cheater (egotist)—need also to apply to the art world. Thus, there are artists and appreciators who are grudgers, suckers, or cheats. The result: the only evolutionary, stable strategy for the art world is a grudger strategy; all other art worlds are doomed to extinction.