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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)

#221

Post by chrisco255 »

iso1210 wrote: post #192
dr_dshiv wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, that's really depressing. I thought hard work and good ideas were important and valuable contributions to society.

Yes, that's the american dream. The problem with america is too many people believe the american dream, that you can go 'rags to riches' with hard work and perseverance. The people working 90 hour weeks and barely able to make rent apparently aren't working hard enough.

You can. I used to work in a retirement community in Florida. I met thousands of retirees who either through their own business or from stock earned in a corporate job or from a solid 401K savings had more than $1 million in net worth. There's more than 10 million households with a net worth of over $1 million in the U.S [1]. It's not hard work and perseverance that matters. It's smart work and money management that matters.

[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/617390/us-millionaire-ho...

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

#223

Post by karamazov2 »

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.

But the transactions between players are zero-sum... An interesting, related point: zero-sum trading games (even ones based on chance [1]) always devolve into pareto/power law distributions when bankruptcy is a possibility. More a matter of natural law than "evil" capitalism

[1] trading game simulation: https://youtu.be/CsRLVZTYpGo?t=313

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

#224

Post by nwah1 »

notacoward wrote: post #130
kiliantics wrote: post #13

The game's creator, Lizzie Magie, was a proponent of Georgism[0], not exactly anti-capitalist, but supported common ownership of land. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism

Calling Georgism "common ownership of land" is seriously misleading. A tax is not ownership, no matter how many times the neo-feudal "vulgar libertarians" (as Georgists and geolibertarians call them) try to establish the trope via mere repetition.

Common ownership is the term Henry George used. Of course, keeping the title system was specifically preferred in order to limit the scope of government.

Just need to pay for the land you use, since it belongs to all.

We should, perhaps, distinguish common ownership from public ownership. The concept of the Commons is one that people ought to understand. Something can be owned in common without it being managed by the government.

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

#225

Post by Izkata »

behringer wrote: post #168
nck4222 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, that goes back to my original comment: >there is an element of strategy in Monopoly (or can be, if you take the time to learn it). Buying every property you land on immediately from the bank for listed price is not an optimal strategy.

To clarify, if you send a property to auction you can still bid on it. You can even use this technique to over extend a competitor.

On the flipside of over-extending, last time my family played we included auctioning. Didn't take long for my brother to realize he could send it to auction, bid $1 (which no one challenged because we were focused on the partially-completed colors we had), and immediately mortgage it for free money to buy houses on the properties he did care about.

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

#226

Post by mynameishere »

aidenn0 wrote: post #185
nck4222 wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, that goes back to my original comment: >there is an element of strategy in Monopoly (or can be, if you take the time to learn it). Buying every property you land on immediately from the bank for listed price is not an optimal strategy.

Other than maybe the utilities, when is it not advantageous to buy a property you land on? Until an opposing monopoly exists, there is a net positive value to each turn, so you have plenty of resources and if all you do is deny the property to someone else, you essentially get it at 50% discount by mortgaging it.

You always buy everything. I can't believe people are arguing about it. Here is the game:

1. Roll dice.

2. Buy whatever you land on.

3. When everything is bought, make a few deals with other players. This takes 30 seconds and is the only skill involved in the game.

4. Roll dice until game ends.

It's 99 percent luck.

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

#227

Post by robomartin »

speedgoose wrote: post #201
robomartin wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

What did happen to Germany? Are you thinking about the national socialism from the Nazi party? If you don't live in USA, why are you bringing their politics in the debate?

East and West Germany. If that doesn't expose the horror that socialism can bring to a population I don't know how else to explain it.

If one were to make a list of all of the advances in humanity across a range of fields of study, one would be very hard pressed to match the accomplishments of capitalism-rooted systems with what came out of the entire human history of socialist-based systems. One list is a thousand kilometers long and the other, by comparison, a post-it note. I truly don't understand how anyone can defend such ideology given the overwhelming evidence against it.

The countries usually held-up as examples of "good" socialism are not socialist nations at all. The way I would characterize them is that they are capitalist nations with good to excellent social programs. And, guess, what, there's nothing wrong with that at all. But let's not call them socialism, because they are not. Socialism leads to horror and suffering. Norway, as an example, is not a socialist nation. Even better, they could not have the programs they enjoy were it not for the oil industry they intelligently use to fund aspects of their society.

Bernie and company love to grab examples like Denmark and pretend they apply one-to-one to the US. We are not Denmark and Denmark is not the US. You can't do that. You can't point at the educational system in Finland and propose we do the same in the US, it won't work. We are different, the cultures are different, it's a different reality.

The simplest examples of this is what happened in Japan during Fukushima and today in China with COVID-19. If a disaster like Fukushima or Wuhan happened in the US you would, more than likely, have looting and all kinds of criminal activity by people taking advantage of the situation. That is a cultural difference that is almost insurmountable. And so, if someone proposed bringing Japanese style policing into the US because "look at how well Fukushima worked out" they would be, well, insane, completely disconnected from reality.

That is what Sanders and company are doing with Socialism and when they compare the US to other nations. We are not the same. We are better at a few things and worse at others. We can always improve, but let's not pretend there's some magical pill that will make everything better instantly, that's not real.

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

#228

Post by mullingitover »

chrisco255 wrote: post #149
xg15 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

No, it's not dependent on chance. It's not some random spin on a roulette wheel. It depends on if you are offering a service that is valued by the marketplace. There may be only so much time in a day, but the critical factor in wealth creation is how much you can get done in a day (productivity). You can also figure out clever ways to get more out of what you have (efficiency).

> No, it's not dependent on chance. It's not some random spin on a roulette wheel.

There are many random factors that can cause your business to succeed or fail.

You might have a terrible business idea that would normally fail, but a coincidental event could cause your business to become wildly successful.

You could be a terrible businessperson, but by luck of birth your family has connections that allow your business to succeed through pure nepotism.

You might have a brilliant idea that fails because of a natural disaster, or because someone doesn't like you and decides to bury you in lawsuits.

You might have a brilliant business idea but a competitor springs up and poaches your labor pool.

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

#229

Post by sgift »

chrisco255 wrote: post #221
iso1210 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, that's the american dream. The problem with america is too many people believe the american dream, that you can go 'rags to riches' with hard work and perseverance. The people working 90 hour weeks and barely able to make rent apparently aren't working hard enough.

You can. I used to work in a retirement community in Florida. I met thousands of retirees who either through their own business or from stock earned in a corporate job or from a solid 401K savings had more than $1 million in net worth. There's more than 10 million households with a net worth of over $1 million in the U.S [1]. It's not hard work and perseverance that matters. It's smart work and money management that…

Perfect example for survivorship bias. To live in a retirement community you have to have money. So, when you work in a retirement community you see retired people who have money. What you don't see are all the people who made the same decisions, did the same things, but for some reason didn't end up in a retirement community in Florida.

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

#230

Post by legitster »

DubiousPusher wrote: post #218
legitster wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yup, never said he was opposed to markets nor accumulation of capital. But capitalism as we know it is hugely influenced by our current system of private property. Georgeism would have many similarities to our present form of capitalism but it would also look very different.

I guess I don't see how it would look that different. A flat value tax on land seems less radical than a wealth tax (for example). But no one sells a wealth tax as an end to capitalism.
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