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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)

#121

Post by Spellman »

dragontamer wrote: post #91
karatestomp wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're fine if they're short. I'd prefer elimination to longer games where a couple clear leaders after lucky first couple rounds are the only ones who can plausibly win, which I've also seen in a few enlightened modern games. Best case for those games is you spend the remaining 80-90% of the game playing spoiler or kingmaker, which is kinda shitty, or in the worst case the game's designed such that you can't do muc…

"Dead man walking" is one of the worst feelings ever. Settlers of Catan has a few "dead man walking" situations, but they're somewhat rare.... Especially because the optimal strategy in Catan is to trade with players weaker than you. So all "dead men walking" get boosted by the stronger players. The 1st place player never wants to trade with the 2nd place player, or vice versa. "Ticket to Ride" has more dead-man walk…

Nitpick on Catan.

The optimal strategy is to trade with players weaker than you who have something worth trading.

I've had many games where the "dead man walking" comes into effect because a player generates too few resources or not in demand resources (usually by bad initial placement) and therefore is only useful to squeeze for the occasional resource. They can't engage in constant trades because they literally have nothing, potentially not even as a space blocker. So optimal strategy becomes mostly ignore them except for kingmaker.

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

#122

Post by Spellman »

eitland wrote: post #109
larrik wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

So no Risk and no Chess for you?

No OP, but I assume Risk is out.

But Chess is OK because game ends when one player is eliminated. Therefore, no lingering players eliminated and standing on the sidelines while the rest play.

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

#123

Post by nck4222 »

jandrese wrote: post #99
nck4222 wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

Usually people don't pass up the chance to buy property though. It's not that there's a house rule against the auction, it just never comes up unless you have someone who is already losing badly that lands on a space that has somehow not already been snapped up.

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.

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

#124

Post by pessimizer »

skybrian wrote: post #63
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.

That's not real wealth though. The houses and hotels are the actual capital improvements. The thing is, supply and demand seem not to matter in the housing market. If you land on Park Place you can't shop around for alternatives. 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. If the other houses are occupied then why isn't anyone…

> If the other houses are occupied then why isn't anyone getting any income from them?

I think you're talking about profit here. If you're going to take the metaphor seriously I think you'd have to assume income is coming in if the houses are maintained. Your profit is the money you take from the other players. If you land on Park Place, you specifically need Park Place, and you're forced to pay a premium. As the property owner you're waiting for those premiums to overtake the initial outlay used to build the houses.

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

#125

Post by Spellman »

dragontamer wrote: post #23
larrik wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Try Acquire instead. 1. All players play to the end. 2. Implicit alliances are setup similar to the stock market. If the "Saxon" company does better, ALL players who own Saxon benefit. 3. Implicit rivalries are setup similar to the stock market. If "Saxon" company is the strongest in the game, the players you have to worry about are the fellow "Saxon" shareholders. Especially the intense fight over who is majority sh…

Acquire is such a better game if you enjoy the idea of financial wheeling and dealing.

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

#126

Post by fjp »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #107
fjp wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Oh it still is.

Capitalism is not exactly equal to "free market". There's still a hell of a lot of market under socialism.

I'm just pointing out that you have to regulate SOMETHING. Regulating nothing = people amassing wealth and buying political influence = those current power holders regulating everyone else so the current power holders just continue to win. Then you don't have your "free market" anymore. It's inherently unstable.

In my opinion, the wealthy should have no more political power than the poor. But of course the wealthy have an outsized ability to influence politics. So they can work to repeal or nullify the very laws meant to reduce their influence - it's a fight that will never end and requires working and poor people to constantly be aware, organizing, and participating in politics to have any chance at all.

Or maybe one day, in my dream world, the rich and powerful will realize hey it's not so bad to have a workforce that is educated and healthy and has enough money in their pocket to buy the things we produce without taking out loans! And then we all leave in peace and harmony...

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

#127

Post by justizin »

solotronics wrote: post #108
loaiw1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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?

> 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?

You are pinning your argument on houses in _TEXAS_ having gotten smaller? lol bc if anything they have gotten larger.

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

#128

Post by Spellman »

captn3m0 wrote: post #80
jbay808 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An issue with games like Pandemic is that a more experienced or dominant player can tend to take charge of the whole team, with everyone else following their orders instead of autonomously making their own decisions. Especially if following the experienced player's advice really does maximize the chance of winning, it basically becomes a single-player game with spectators who help move the pieces around. I think addi…

The fancier term for this is "The Quarterback" problem. It happens at every Pandemic game, but there are ways around it. Even something as simple as a total-game-timer helps. Another rule that helps is enforcing the "consent" part of the rules (for 2-player interactions, including the one where you're allowed to move other players), and ensuring autonomy is respected in the game, even if its a sub-optimal move. +1 to…

Alternatively, hidden traitor (Shadows over Camelot, Dead of Winter, Battlestar Galactica)! Then you can't trust the "Quarterback" because they could be LYING!!!

Other games solve this via real-time constraints. Thinking Escape from the Cursed Temple and Space Alert. There's not enough time for on person to coordinate everyone, so everyone needs to communicate and take initiative.

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

#129

Post by dr_dshiv »

sokoloff wrote: post #114
dr_dshiv wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is trading legal in Monopoly? I'm assuming that's what you are referring to.

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

#130

Post by notacoward »

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.
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