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The Landlord's Game

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101–110 of 170 posts

Re: The Landlord's Game

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes Smith was great. Why is inheritance moral? One person gets something for free, the other works and has to pay tax?

>Why is inheritance moral? Because we do not want to isolate children from their parents. A 100% inheritance tax is impossible from a practical standpoint. >One person gets something for free, Do you abandon your child as soon as it is born? Do you think your newborn should work and pay the bills? No, you support it for 18 years and let it grow as much as possible instead of considering your child something to be exp…

You went from “I cannot think of any reason for inheritance tax” to ... proposing an inheritance tax (at a very high threshold) in the space of a paragraph.

Untaxed inheritance perpetuates inequality. Inequalities are unfair and arguably damage our societies. Functioning societies aim to repair the damage by rebalancing structural inequalities. Hence inheritance tax. The children of the very wealthy aren’t being “abandoned”, they already have surpassing advantages while their parents are alive.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#102
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you force a bunch of rich people to spend more than they would have, the Fed will just take that money straight back out of the economy. So if they go on more vacations, buy a flashy car, have more parties, you are saying that the Fed "takes that money straight back" and that it doesn't go to travel agencies, car dealers, caterers, party planners, service workers etc? > Ten families in $1 million houses get more…

> So if they go on more vacations, buy a flashy car, have more parties, you are saying that the Fed "takes that money straight back" and that it doesn't go to travel agencies, car dealers, caterers, party planners, service workers etc? They do get the money. But the world hasn't become any more productive; the number of goods and services being produced is still the same. So when they spend that money and consume goo…

> They do get the money. But the world hasn't become any more productive; the number of goods and services being produced is still the same. So when they spend that money and consume goods and services, someone else must necessarily be consuming less.

More flights (its' virtue another discussion), more cars produced, more parties planned, food made, services rendered.

Of course production has gone up, and will continue when those people spend their money on their (smaller) houses etc.

And are you making your claim as a counterpoint to my scenario compared to inheritance? Because pushing money down the line to sit on it certainly does not make the world more productive.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a board game where one's advantage doesn't compound, though?

The jargon for this is a "comeback mechanic" - game designers have to be cautious with them though, as if the final round can flip the results too easily what was the point of all the other rounds? In "Power Grid" (a power plant building game) the turn order is recalculated every round based on how well the player is doing, with the players doing worst getting more chances to bid in power plant auctions and being fir…

Yes, you can lose the meaning of all other rounds but the last. And if player strategies can maximize comebacks, then all the smart people will only focus on the comebacks and only the less experienced or relaxed players will play the actual game (and be constantly frustrated by seeming to win early on and then losing to comebacks without feeling any power to change that).

In chess, which doesn't have a clear comeback mechanic, this sometimes works out, since the impact of late game mistakes can vastly outperform early wins. So, comebacks are clearly and directly linked to the skill of the winning player making a mistake and the skill of the losing player being able to capitalize this mistake.

But even that direction doesn't come for free. As in such games skill is so important, inexperienced players fighting each other will have a lot of huge randomness in their outcomes and altogether the game only becomes fun once you reach a certain minimum skill level.

Last but not least, there are also alternatives to comebacks. For instance, in poker or pen&paper roleplaying games a factor of pure randomness is added. So, while on average the skilled players will have almost all the positive experiences that chess players have (they win more often, they have more clarity and control about the progress and current status mid-game), the unskilled players can sometimes make a lucky win which seems satisfying enough that some people get addicted to poker without ever gaining much skill.

As Monopoly also has a random element, I wonder if simply tuning the impact of randomness would make it more fun, allow for more lucky comebacks, etc. As a stupid example, maybe event cards could introduce property tax rates that stay until another event card alters them, or a renter being unhappy about the rental property won't pay the rent or even create costs through law-suits, required building repairs, or clean-ups.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#104
post #81
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the whole point, yes. You're supposed to hate the banker who has the easiest ability to cheat and thus control the game. There are parallels and metaphors being laid here...

I'm not so sure that the whole point of monopoly is to be banker and cheat.

I would read his statement slightly different: In that perspective, the actual game is to cheat and not follow the rules. Everybody should do it, but the banker has an advantage. Thus, everybody hates the banker for having an advantage in the actual cheating game.

I have to say, it's slightly funny to assume a multiplayer game that is entered by all the players with the clear and open intent to not follow the rules of the game.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps the most intrigueing meta observation of the monopoly game is how the players seem to never recognise how it is rigged, at least years of playing it with my cousins never revealed the didactic purpose to any of us. When we played people always took it seriously, ie that there are smart things you can do and you should do them, but we never stepped back and pointed out how the rules made the losers more and mo…

Is there a board game where one's advantage doesn't compound, though?

A countervailing pattern I've seen (in games with 3+ players) is that, if one player pulls into a lead, then the other players will start piling on them. Board games like Avalon Hill Civilization, Family Business, Root, etc. -- basically any game where you can choose one of your rivals to attack.

Munchkin takes this to the extreme, where someone will perpetually be on the edge of winning and there are a variety of colorful ways to set them back. It's random and chaotic by design.

Monopoly doesn't really involve such a mechanic. You can refuse to trade with someone who is pulling ahead, but by that time it is more likely to be too late.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#106

Monopoly was popular with kids on my block back in Palo Alto in the 60's. At least, it was omnipresent in collections, and we'd attempt to play it every so often... I can't remember one game that didn't feature (a) disputes about rules and the administration of the bank; (b) animosity and dissatisfaction upon exit; and (c) hollow emptiness for the (newly friendless)"winner".

There’s a reason that Monopoly is ubiquitously disliked by almost all board gamers. It’s become the game that many people associate with the hobby. This is so far from the truth.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s the whole point, it’s a realistic simulation of life

It leaves out an important piece though, inheritance. No way for you to win if there’s another player who inherits a small fortune of existing properties on the board.

Monopoly has no rules for inheritance.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#108
post #94
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

maybe start from the names: socialism tries to put society first, capitalism tries to put capital first. western europe democracies try to be 'social capitalism', with mixed results, but maybe not as disastrous and scary as some folks here would like them to be.

Capitalism puts capital first, sure, but it is necessary to say it specifically puts person-owned capital first. Economically the USSR had capital too, but it was mostly owned collectively (by the state). Hence I define the two in terms of the people that actually own stuff.

fair points, but one could argue that USSR wasn't necessarily a socialist state. it was totalitarian, which somehow gets more confused with socialist the further west you go and ask.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#109
post #75
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a good understanding, but is it actually socialist when it is about increasing personal wealth at the core? It does rather sound like a constrained version of capitalism to me.

Socialism tries in increase wealth of individuals, just like capitalism does. The difference is that different flavours of socialism want to increase it across the board, where capitalism wants an individuals wealth to be very well protected, especially when the numbers get high, so that wealth may accumulate in few. I find it fascinating that the original Monopoly game was desgined to teach us the difference and how…

Georgism is extremely capitalist, and it is not “tax bad behavior.”

Georgism can be summarized as such: A person is entitled to exactly what he or she produces.

That’s the purest capitalism I’ve ever heard of. The scent of socialism you get is due to the examination that George provides of “exactly what he or she produces.”

Laborers are therefore entitled to all of their wages. Capitalists, who earn money by deploying capital (which is actually stored up labor) are entitled to all of their returns. Landlords, however, earn money by charging for access to something they did not produce - either to the “productive powers of nature” such as rivers, mines, farmable land, or to value created by the community surrounding a plot of land (such as education, cultural amenities, public transit, or private employment opportunities).

It’s really not socialist at all. It’s idealized capitalism.

Re: The Landlord's Game

#110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there a board game where one's advantage doesn't compound, though?

A countervailing pattern I've seen (in games with 3+ players) is that, if one player pulls into a lead, then the other players will start piling on them. Board games like Avalon Hill Civilization, Family Business, Root, etc. -- basically any game where you can choose one of your rivals to attack. Munchkin takes this to the extreme, where someone will perpetually be on the edge of winning and there are a variety of co…

The equivalent in monopoly is making an unfavorable trade with whoever is in second place, putting yourself behind in order to give the 2nd place person a shot at winning.
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