In monopoly you're forced to pay, in reality you have choice to who you want to pay.
Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)
101–110 of 374 posts
Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)
#102Monopoly was meant to show the benefits of Georgism - essentially a flat-value land tax. Georgism is not opposed to capitalism. In fact, Adam Smith himself advocated a similar tax. So did Keynes, Friedman- nearly every economist. However, it is likely that Elizabeth Magie herself didn't quite understand this - the Georgist set of rules in the Landlord's game doesn't quite match what Henry George was proposing. George…
Henry George was more or less opposed to our current conception of capitalism. He believed all land and narual resources should be held in common. He stated that a person should be entitled to the product of their personal labor and that was about it. But being a practical man he realized the horse was well out of the barn on private ownership of land and felt that a land value tax was essentially the next best thing…
I feel that is an overzealous interpretation. The whole crux of his work was that rent was unlike capital and labor and very subject to exploitation. He very much believed in markets and accumulation of capital. You can collectively own natural resources and still have a vibrant free trade economy.
Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)
#103Monopoly teaches people a view of economics being a zero-sum game and too many people learn the wrong lessons from it. Real life isn't a zero-sum game.
The monopoly game is not zero-sum. Money increases when you pass start, and cards drawn are on average a source of money. In fact, the money owned by players inflates as the game goes on.
It is zero sum, because no intentional action can increase wealth. Only the gradual, chance-based progression of new money into the game.
In contrast, if I take out a loan and build a successful business, my intentional actions (successful business) lead to greater money supply than if I had failed at business.
Does that make sense, or am I missing something? I'll admit, the creation of new wealth/money is very mysterious. How to know when it is growing the pie?
Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)
#104How else should land be distributed if not via free market capitalism? Land is a scarce resource that people want. Either some person/corporation owns it or the government does. Its easy to see models where the government owns all the property as this exists in many places around the world such as Nigeria, China, and North Korea.
Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)
#105[flagged]
I think you're grossly over simplifying "the system" that created all of those things. We don't live in either a "capitalist" or "socialist" system. It's a blend. If you read Adam Smith and Karl Marx you'll see we have many elements of both.
Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet we are 30x richer per person in a 10x bigger population since the Industrial Revolution started. That is 300x more than a zero sum model would predict.
"We"? What is being counted here, the average income and wealth? Of course people are better off with food and iPhones, but in many major European cities people with middle class incomes share apartments that were literally single family worker apartments around 1900. In terms of living space, the quality of life for the middle class is worse than 100 years ago.
> In terms of living space, the quality of life for the middle class is worse than 100 years ago.
most urbanites of today don't own a chicken, let alone a cow, in 800's standard they're worse off than serfs.
Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)
#107Earlier quoted context omitted.
> This might be retconned by saying that most housing is occupied and that's where you found a vacancy, but it's still pretty artificial. Actually this just sounds like the California housing market where NIMBYs perpetually prevent housing stock from increasing, which is of course a result of central planning, not a free market mechanism, LOL!
It's not purely "free market" to restrict housing supply, but the freedom to influence politics to your own advantage (like NIMBY's restricting housing supply) is absolutely an effect of the free market system.
Why wouldn't buying political advantage be just as bad under socialism or communism, etc?
Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
And yet we are 30x richer per person in a 10x bigger population since the Industrial Revolution started. That is 300x more than a zero sum model would predict.
"We"? What is being counted here, the average income and wealth? Of course people are better off with food and iPhones, but in many major European cities people with middle class incomes share apartments that were literally single family worker apartments around 1900. In terms of living space, the quality of life for the middle class is worse than 100 years ago.
There are exponentially more people today. In 1850 there were 23 million people in America, today there are 330 million. There was a 15x increase in population, with more than that in the city centers.
Texas had a population of 212k in 1850 and 29 million today. How can you compare the size of a house or land ownership then to today?
Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)
#109Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is true, but the rolls of the dice still have vastly more influence on the outcome than the very limited decisions that players can make. In order to decide whether or not to buy Park Place you have to land on it first. Not unlike real life.
>Park Place you have to land on it first. Not necessarily. The games rules include an auction that is frequently removed in house rules. What's supposed to happen is if the player who lands on the space (Player A) doesn't buy it from the bank, the property is auctioned to all players. Maybe no one owns Boardwalk yet, and Player A doesn't want to try and get the Park Place/Boardwalk monopoly. Or maybe Boardwalk is own…
You can calculate the game-theoretic value of all of the properties (I'm a little surprised that no one seems to have actually done this AFAICT -- maybe a project for next weekend). At that point the game reduces to pure luck: players who land on properties whose list price is less than their game-theoretic value will buy those properties and gain a (small) edge. The auction clearing price for rational players will be the game-theoretic value, which will have no effect on the outcome. The rest is pure luck (modulo some other obscure rule that I've forgotten then allows players to make decisions), and that is the overwhelmingly dominant factor.