Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism (2017) • Hacker News Board

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

#151

Post by behringer » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #47

andrepd wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The game rarely goes on for hours without free parking.

The game should run between. 30-60 minutes at the most with normal rules and if everyone knows what's up. Once the first player falls an auction begins or one player gets all the assets and the game is quickly over after that. Most games go on forever because there's money on free parking or you don't do auctions, or you have unlimited houses.

Play by the rules and the game is very fun with a lot of strategies.

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

#152

Post by grabbalacious » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

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.

House rules that obviate this to some extent (e.g. 'free parking') seem a bit like a debt jubilee.

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

#153

Post by Spellman » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 6:47 PM UTC

TimPC wrote: post #148

Spellman wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

Catan can get pretty uninteresting due to dice variance. I've had games where two players made lots of resources on 9 and two players made lots of resources on 5. Five got rolled 14 times and 9 got rolled 3 times. Even with good spots if the dice are against you it can easily become a lot of do nothing while other people play the game. A lot of people also play with the houserule no trading because there is too much…

Wait, no trading??? That seems to remove the only interesting aspect of the game!

Otherwise you're all sitting around a board that randomly generates resources for you to spend and sorta get in each other's way with road and settlement placements. If you want semi-solo Euro games, play something with way less dice variance!

The trades and dynamic that arises from the mechanic are pretty much the only reason to play imo. Otherwise the dice mechanics are way too strong as you point out.

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

#154

Post by TimPC » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

dragontamer wrote: post #81

chungy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you win, then?

"First to 10 points wins". "Dominion", "Settlers of Catan", "Splendor" are great games of this nature. ------ Acquire has "When all companies are monopolies (11 tiles or larger) or when one company is of size 42, the game is over". So the game is on an implicit clock. All players keep playing until the end condition.

Settlers of Catan is a deeply flawed game. It's far better than monopoly but is definitely too dice-heavy and kingmaker oriented. Dominion is in a lot of ways among the worst games in the genre it created as most of the variants that followed added more interesting mechanics and tradeoffs. It should get a lot of credit for being original so I guess I'm fine with calling it a great game. Splendor is a classic.

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

#155

Post by dr_dshiv » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #146

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…

You're confusing your hypothetical personal success with the state of the system as a whole. Most businesses will fail, and most businesses are built on loans of some kind rather than bootstrapped. Rent-seekers will try to profit from this because they will claw back their "investment" in the form of collateral - preferably physical, but IP as a last resort. If businesses succeed, rent-seekers will profit from their…

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

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

#156

Post by btilly » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 6:48 PM UTC

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'll admit, the creation of new wealth/money is very mysterious. How to know when it is growing the pie?

Wealth is stuff that people want. You create wealth by creating stuff that other people want. http://www.paulgraham.com/wealth.html has a long version of this explanation.

The last 200 years have seen a dramatic transformation as we have found ways to efficiently create more wealth, with the result that we all have more stuff that we want than pretty much anyone used to. Both new kinds of stuff (effective medicine, gadgets like washing machines, electronic devices...) and the kinds of stuff we used to have (food, potable water, etc...).

And yet, people still emotionally fall prey to the old fallacy that more for thee means less for me. The truth is that there is no society on record that has managed to lower inequity without major disaster such as war or plague. And also no society on record that has managed to increase the prosperity of the poor without seeing income gaps rise.

(Read Enlightenment Now for a lot more detail on both of these phenomena.)

Or, as Margaret Thatcher put it, "...he would rather that the poor were poorer provided the rich were less rich." (See https://speakola.com/political/margaret-thatcher-on-socialis... for the full quote.)

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

#157

Post by simion314 » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

robomartin wrote: post #139

vzidex wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I love people who call capitalism evil while doing so on computers and phones that exist because of it, while surrounded by products, from their clothes to their desk, furniture, construction materials, cars and more that are the product of the system. This is a bad-faith argument - you're allowed to protest a system that you are forced to participate in. Our current system does not offer any clothes, furniture, ho…

[flagged]

What is all your point getting at? I mean don't you have already in USA public schools,roads, parks, firemen, police ? You can have your private bodyguards if you like, your private teachers etc. Do you think say firemen should go and only stop fire if you have insurance and if you are poor you should just burn? If not then why should a poor person have no health care , a rich dude can pay for private hospitals and doctors anyway.

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

#158

Post by robomartin » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 6:50 PM UTC

freedomben wrote: post #105

robomartin wrote: post #46

[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.

[flagged]

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

#159

Post by vondur » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 6:52 PM UTC

dr_dshiv wrote: post #92

Here is the crux of the article, beginning with the father of the inventor, Elizabeth Magie: "Travelling around America in the 1870s, George had witnessed persistent destitution amid growing wealth, and he believed it was largely the inequity of land ownership that bound these two forces – poverty and progress – together. So instead of following Twain by encouraging his fellow citizens to buy land, he called on the s…

I believe that there has always been land taxes here in the US. I'd love for the US to break up some of these huge overpowering companies today though.

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

#160

Post by e12e » Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 6:53 PM UTC

dr_dshiv wrote: post #129

sokoloff wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Apparently not in the original :

http://landlordsgame.info/rules/lg-1904p_patent.html

However:

> Borrowing: A player may borrow from the “Bank" in amounts of one hundred dollars, and for every one hundred dollars borrowed the " Bank" takes a mortgage on one or more of the borrower's lots, the total value of which must be at least ten dollars more than is borrowed. For every one hundred dollars borrowed from the "Bank" a bank mortgage is placed upon the property on which the loan is made, and the player puts his note in the "Bank," paying upon each note five dollars (interest) every time he receives his wages. One player may borrow from another, giving a mortgage on any property he may own and making the best bargain he can as to interest, terms of payments &c. The player loaning the money places his individual, mortgage on the top of the borrower's deed to show that he has a mortgage on that property, Should a loan be repaid before passing the beginning-point, the borrower saves the interest.

But there are a few variations... This one looks closer to "modern" monopoly - I can't seem to locate the "two rulesets" referenced by Wikipedia though (one "pro" one "contra" monopoly - in the second everyone supposedly benefits from created value).

http://landlordsgame.info/games/lg-1906/lg-1906_egc-rules.ht...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_(game)

> Magie created two sets of rules: an anti-monopolist set in which all were rewarded when wealth was created, and a monopolist set in which the goal was to create monopolies and crush opponents.

[edit: here are the combined rules with rules for "prosperity" https://landlordsgame.info/games/lgp-1932/lgp-1932_rules.htm... ]