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Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

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Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#111

Post by jdc »

pyrale wrote: post #43
chungy wrote: post #10

Monopoly 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.

While true, in almost any iterated trading game major disparities emerge — a point Monopoly makes well.

In real life however, these disparities are only a problem if people leverage them against others.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#112

Post by vsareto »

jandrese wrote: post #94
vsareto wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give everyone 10x the bank's cash as inheritance and you'll also learn a lot of real life lessons from it.

A more realistic solution would be to have one player start with half of the bank and already owning most of the properties. Two other players start with the regular starting cash. Everybody else starts with nothing. Then they must praise the first player for being such a stunning businessman if he wins.

A bunch of rich people competing with one another even though they have everything they'll ever need is pretty realistic too.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#113

Post by pessimizer »

andrepd wrote: post #20
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopoly sucks because of using the house rule that Free Parking is a jackpot of money. Not doing property auctions and paying out $400 for landing on Go are lesser reasons for it sucking. Stick to the published rules and the problems mostly to away.

That house rule (which is far from universally applied) is a small detail. The game is boring (luck-based, little if any strategy) and unenjoyable in other ways: it takes too long to finish, players who go bust early are left watching the game continue for maybe hours, front-runners are almost certainly going to win yet it takes an excruciatingly drawn-out process to finish the process, etc.

There's a lot of strategy in Monopoly. People who don't think there's strategy in Monopoly in my experience are people who don't understand the value of trading, and have largely played games of it where little to no trading was done.

If you can't imagine trading with another player in a way that would give that player a Monopoly, you haven't exhausted the strategy space of Monopoly, a seminal game in the history of board games that all 3M/German/Euro-style strategy games of today owe a debt to.

I'm going to stop because I feel like I'm falling into a bizarre habit of only commenting on HN when Monopoly is brought up negatively:)

edit: if there's an obvious, unstoppable winner at any point in any game, you are allowed to stop playing.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#114

Post by sokoloff »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #103
pyrale wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 myste…

I would argue that if I hold 2 of the yellow and 1 of the green properties and you hold 1 of the yellow and 2 of the green in a 3+ person game, that we do have an intentional action that can leave us both better off.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#115

Post by jedberg »

andrepd wrote: post #20
Mountain_Skies wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Monopoly sucks because of using the house rule that Free Parking is a jackpot of money. Not doing property auctions and paying out $400 for landing on Go are lesser reasons for it sucking. Stick to the published rules and the problems mostly to away.

That house rule (which is far from universally applied) is a small detail. The game is boring (luck-based, little if any strategy) and unenjoyable in other ways: it takes too long to finish, players who go bust early are left watching the game continue for maybe hours, front-runners are almost certainly going to win yet it takes an excruciatingly drawn-out process to finish the process, etc.

If you follow the actual rules, the game rarely lasts more than an hour. The main rule that no one follows that speeds up the game is auctioning a property when there person doesn't want to buy it.

It forces every property on the board to be owned with just a few times around the board.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#116

Post by praptak »

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #15
larrik wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any boardgame that involves eliminating players from it is a non-starter for me.

From a social fun aspect, that's a good way to look at it. From the Landlord's Game/Monopoly original intent, eliminating a player basically means they are homeless and destitute, making the educational point rather clear. That said, cooperative games are a nicer way to spend an evening with friends.

Actually, the axed "Prosperity" set of rules for the original game was cooperative.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#117

Post by falcolas »

pjc50 wrote: post #97
falcolas wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a purely monetary point of view at a global level, transactions are indeed a positive sum. But the "positive" value of transactions, globally, is remarkably small - it's effectively inflation minus population growth (between 1 and 3% yearly). So, if your money is growing more than this 3%, someone else is losing money so you can make it. EDIT: I figured this would be unpopular - please feel free to correct me, t…

This is the whole Picketty et al "r > g" question, and I believe economists disagree on what the real numbers are.

So, it seems that "r > g" is less of a question and more of a generally accepted statement. I'm not an economist, but a cursory review of economist whitepapers (here's one[0]) indicates that most don't dispute the "r > g" assertion, but instead just say that "this is a reasonable state of affairs", or "it's a problem, but the solutions are worse."

[0] https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/mankiw/files/yes_r_g_so_wh...

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#118

Post by xg15 »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #103
pyrale wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 myste…

> my intentional actions (successful business)

Your intentional action is to start a business. Whether or not it will be a successful business and actually "generate wealth" is to a large part dependant an chance.

Also, honestly, "It's not a zero-sum game" is beginning to sound like a religious mantra. Of course you can define "wealth" however your want and for the right definitions, you can certainly pull ever more of it out of nowhere. The set of natural numbers has no upper bound.

However, many extremely relevant kinds of wealth absolutely are zero-sum: There is only so much time in a day, only so much space to live in, only so many natural resources and only so much waste the planet will tolerate. If some class of people control disproportionately amounts of that, it will absolutely reduce the wealth of those who don't belong to that class.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#119

Post by dr_dshiv »

koheripbal wrote: post #54
pyrale wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This is correct - but I think the point the user above is trying to make is that the game doesn't teach the most fundamental lesson of capitalism - that competition drives adaptation.

Competition driving adaptation is really important, but darwinism predates capitalism!

I'd argue that the most fundamental lesson of capitalism is that markets magically allow individual self-interest to contribute to the collective benefit

Ok, fun facts: Adam Smith got his PhD in a department of moral philosophy. His first book was about why people are nice to each other: I feel good if you feel good, I feel bad if you feel bad.

His second book, "Wealth of Nations", was also about why people are nice to each other. He described capitalism (aka market economies) as the basis for large-scale moral action. Markets and trade naturally support collective benefit.

Adam Smith wasn't extreme -- his point was to promote "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" -- a phrase coined by Adam Smith's PhD advisor, Francis Hutcheson.

Re: Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017)

#120

Post by sokoloff »

QuesnayJr wrote: post #19
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #8

My children learned how to negotiate via family monopoly games. This has made parenting MUCH more difficult.

I think they would have figured it out eventually. We never play Monopoly, but I sometimes suspect that my children are actually reincarnated lawyers.

My 4.5 year old (at the time) was playing school with his 6 year old sibling.

Older: What is 1 plus 1?

Younger: Two. Or eleven.

I see Javascript or law in the future...

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