Monopoly was invented to demonstrate the evils of capitalism
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aeon.co
It was designed partly as a joke, but partly to demonstrate ridiculousness of communism. The goal of the game was to become a secretary general of the communist party and emigrate abroad.
I can't read the Czech link (do you know if there's a translated link or something in English?) but that seems more like from your one sentence description (and my reading of the wikipedia link) a game satirizing the ridiculousness of playing politics rather than communism?
If you go to Google Translate, type in a URL and click translate, you can translate any webpage. (Chrome has the feature built-in.)
Just to explain the most unclear things, "mina" means mine (explosive device), and "veksl" means illegal money exchange (with western currency).
Yes, it was more about ridiculousness of the real socialism, not the idea of communism.
The bigger problem with capitalism is it is designed to perpetuate entrenched interests and status quo. It origins from a time when few had capital or property, only the nobility did, convenient, and was obviously designed to perpetuate feudalism by proxy as they could direct economies and systems with their resources, and continue to.
A few examples of those who sacrifice their entire life to gain more capital offers eternal hope to the masses to hop on to the gravy train some already are on by birth, and those who sacrifice their life to accomplish this are obviously going to be overzealous supporters of 'the system', their entire identity and self worth riding on this achievement.
We need to find a way to detach progress from capitalism. Human progress cannot depend on greed which is basically what capitalism boils down to, rewarding and perpetuating the base traits of humanity and leaving a soulless society unable to rise above basic greed in its wake.
What, you mean this[0] isn't progress? /s
The surge in irregular jobs doesn’t just create problems for the people working those jobs. It’s also led companies to feel that they can treat their regular workers poorly, because those workers feel so lucky to have a job, Konno told me. Knowing that people in their 20s and 30s are desperate to get regular jobs, companies hire lots of young people and force them to work long hours for little to no overtime pay, assuming that most won’t be able to survive the harsh conditions, Konno said. Japan has long had a culture of overwork—there’s even a Japanese word, karoshi, for death by overwork—but Konno says that it has worsened since the Great Recession, as companies have realized that good jobs are hard to find in Japan, and so push their employees harder.
...
Though company employees left work at 7 p.m. on paper, Matsubara said he was required to work until late at night almost every day. Employees were required to sign off at 7 p.m., even if they were still working, and were given iPads so that they could do so even if they were out of the office at meetings. If they didn’t sign off, they’d get a call on their cellphones brusquely asking them to sign off immediately but keep working, he said. “The amount of time you're actually working and the amount of time that is recorded you're working have absolutely no relation to each other,”
[0] The Mystery of Why Japanese People Are Having So Few Babies https://goo.gl/zoHH6L (theatlantic.com)
-Milton Friedman
That's exactly why capitalism works. You're exemplifying the standard flaw in leftist, utopian thinking: that you can overcome or change human nature.
Utopia would come at an enormous cost, and everyone who's tried has gone bankrupt--morally, ethically, and financially. But we'll get it right This Time.
Please read a history book. Maybe start with The Gulag Archipelago.
We quickly remembered why we hadn't played it in a year: you must be greedy to win, hopes & dreams get dashed, and someone always ends up angry and/or in tears.
Why? Probably due to the extremely zero-sum randomly-driven parts of it, combined with the last-man-standing nature. People who have to drop out early end up disaffected. Someone who gets an early advantage will usually stay ahead, which isn't fun either.
There are games with more backstabbing in e.g. Diplomacy, but they're rightly seen as not for everyone. Whereas Monopoly has this odd status as "default board game" while not being very fun.
see every game, ever...
So how do you feel about the Game of Life? Did it give you PTSD?
Deliberately misrepresenting what other people say is annoying.
Though to be on topic again, are there many board games where the goal isn't to beat the other player by whatever means the rules of the board game allow? From tic-tac-toe to monopoly to card games, there will always be a loser, and if he or she can't handle that, they will cry/tirade.
hmm i never heard of these games, i'll be checking those, thanks
The comment sparked a lot of discussion and most people didn't know about that original goal of Monopoly.
Now this article appear on a major magazine. It's very suspicious. Unless this is a huge coincidence, these writers must think again about their intellectual honesty.
For anyone wondering: they are talking about the game 'Monopoly'.
Capitalism is the reason why there isn't a single copy of the board game Monopoly.
Could a computer program (e.g. genetic programming) come up with a fair set of rules?
Theoretically, the game starts as fair. All start with the same money, on the same place on the board. But since you move by rolling dice, some folks get luckier than others, with more chances to buy things or gain income.... or simply avoiding landing on a built up property. The free parking money basically puts lottery money into action. Sometimes, free parking is funded by fees (jail fees, cards, etc) and some folks just take moeny from the bank and put it in the middle.
At times, it means the rich get richer. Sometimes, the poor pull themselves up. Many times, it just makes everyone richer at different times and it takes a lot longer to make folks go bankrupt. It does give a little chance of winning something with each go around the board, and I think this is why the rule is popular.
There are reasons I don't play it very often!
First, if it was meant to teach the evils of capitalism it has failed in many levels, as the article illustrates. Even if you were to play with the amended rules, it'd be moot; nobody cares about Georgist socialism anymore.
As a board game: there are literally hundreds of games better than Monopoly. Even we restrict ourselves to so-called "family" games. If there's something you like about Monopoly, I can assure you can find a better game that has that something but it's better designed:
https://boardgamegeek.com/familygames/browse/boardgame?sort=...
Many will be simpler and shorter too. Of course, you might like or dislike a particular game in that set, but consider that Monopoly is ranked at 1583 in the family category. There's no excuse to play Monopoly unless one somehow has managed to stay unaware of the existence of all these other games.
Capitalism is not zero-sum.
You know whats really cool? Inventing stuff. Using the power of your mind to form matter into a new thing that the universe has never seen before. Whats really cool is starting a business that adds enough value to the world to hire people. Feeding them with the power of your mind and a little bit of shared elbow grease.
The "cool kids" seem to be bashing capitalism today. Thats not cool.
People are ragging on capitalism because they're looking over the pond to countries that see capitalism as a tool to serve democratic interests rather than as moral worldview, and they kind of like that idea. Interestingly, those countries aren't really less capitalistic (the Heritage Foundation puts the U.S. in the same bucket on their Economic Freedom index as Sweden and Germany), but their culture is less centered around glorifying the capitalist.
I think you've made a great point here - but I've seen people explicitly saying they want communism. Look at how often /r/LateStageCapitalism, an explicitly communist subreddit is on the frontpage of reddit.
If people were just pushing for a few more socialized services, I think they've got a good argument to make there. There are good tweaks that can be made. But if they're pushing for a complete change to the system I think they're off their rockers.
The key is what happens to suggestions for "good tweaks". Do they get considered reasonably and implemented fairly? Or are people denounced for even seeking tweaks?
Flexible mixed-economy capitalism seems to be pretty stable. Capitalism that's blind to inequality produces an increasing long tail of disaffected victims with nothing to lose. Hence the rise of kick-over-the-table politics, epitomised by Trump.
At the end of the day, the actual change in the mix of social services might just be tweaks, but you're also talking about a very significant change in worldview.
Don't get me wrong: you can totally stay!
People have been hating capitalism since the invention of capitalism, it's not new. Americans might just be starting to hate it but thats due to the fact that they really haven't been able to ever have a fair and honest discussion about the various economic systems of the world because of 80 years of capitalist propaganda and suppression of socialists and communists
Most politicians who claim to support capitalism actually are supporting nothing of the sort. It then becomes convenient for the media to label capitalism as a corrupt system. It is true that our economic system has become quite corrupt and has abandoned free markets. So when politicians defend that system as a capitalism, then naturally that is where the association has been built.
The problem is the "regulatory capture" part, not the "capitalism" part, in my view. What we have now is capitalism + rules that serve a small percent.
To me capitalism versus socialism are kind of red herrings. The real issue is creating and nurturing competition, which is kind of orthogonal to those issues.
It's completely predictable to end up with "crony socialism" just as much as "crony capitalism".
The way I see it, the appropriate goal is increasing and maintaining competition. Sometimes this means government protection of human capital pools through welfare and social programs, sometimes this means actually regulating a market to increase competition (net neutrality), sometimes this means introducing government services to compete with private services, sometimes this means privatizing things, sometimes it means deregulating...
I also think fairness is another big problem; nominal value and actual value (of labor, goods, etc.) are often different. So in either system you will end up with individuals (you can call them free-riders or psychopaths or whatever) who will take advantage of loopholes, errors, biases, and misspecifications in the system for their own gain. E.g., to me the fundamental problem with income inequality isn't that there's variation in income, it's my sense that that income variation is unfair, in the sense that some people's contributions are being undervalued, or others' are being overvalued, or that there are unrecognized benefits from public services (e.g., net neutrality vis-a-vis ISP's right-of-way grants, government bailouts of financial firms), etc. that aren't being fairly compensated or recognized in regulation.
I worry a bit that framing the debate as capitalism versus socialism only perpetuates problems. The problem is really corruption and fairness.
If an industry is benefiting unfairly from regulatory capture (e.g., in the form of patents, or physician groups, or whatever), focusing on capitalism versus socialism per se only allows the beneficiaries of that capture to come back with accusations of "liberal communism", and then no one is talking about the capture or the corruption, which is the actual problem, and then it continues.
Saying there is no meaningful distinction is truly disingenuous. Like saying there is no difference between a fresh apple and a rotten apple. Obviously there is and there are reasons as to why the different states exist. One state is extremely beneficial and the other state is not.
"[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes." Article 1, also allows for them to make laws ensuring they can execute that directive.
Congress can, however, make laws whose explicit terms make their effect contingent on external facts, including the actions of officers in particular executive-branch agencies.
For reference. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/supco...
“Regulatory agencies” are simply a label for a subset of executive agencies defined by certain traits; I think it would be very hard to argue that the Necessary and Proper Clause does not authorize creating agencies with these traits as a means of exercise of Congress other enumerated powers.
It would still be questionable that most regulation is actually within the enumerated powers. https://fee.org/articles/are-there-no-limits-to-federal-regu...
The title of news article is funny because monopoly cannot even exist in real capitalism nor can corruption. Both are features of socialsm/communism.
Popularity of disliking/hating capitalism is probably due to the lack of proper basic education in the US.
[Citation needed]
You seem to believe that these things are exclusive to capitalism. But none of those things are capitalism, nor would they automatically be excluded in a non-capitalist system.
Although USA economy is still bigger than China, it might change soon and then your presumption would be dismissed.
Why can't China's system produce a better per-person outcome than the USA's? Well, China was starting from a much lower point after western domination, then Japanese invasion, then civil war, and then Mao's blundering and oppression. But apart from that, China's government has too much power. This gives too many opportunities for corruption, and corruption drains the life out of the economy. (And yes, the USA's government has too much power, too. The USA (I think) less corrupt than China, but the corruption is there, at least in the form of people using the government's power to hinder competitors. More direct forms are starting to show up, too, or at least we're starting to hear about them more than we used to.
What system really works? A government strong enough that it can prevent people abusing the market (collusion, fraud, unsafe products), but not so strong that it's easy or useful to use the government as a mechanism of abuse, and not so cumbersome that it gets much in the way of normal (non-fraudulent, non-collusion, safe products) business.
/s
More seriously, the lesson we should apply from Monopoly is that once the money is in few enough hands the "game" of capitalism is over.
Although, it probably in some respects does represent the popular idea of capitalism and the reality of our current regulated economic system.
The game monopoly better represents a non free market economy. The players are constrained within the limited confines of the game. As players accrue money and resources they can't invest that into new businesses. The is no representation in the game of other economic pressures of supply and demand of human resources. All these limits are more analogous to a heavily regulated economy. And of course, part of the game is based simply on chance. Players aren't complete free to engage in free trade as they would see fit.
I think people understand the world is more complex than either planned economies, or pure free market ones, and hybrids are necessary. The question is how to make regulating them proactive rather than reactive which is how political based moderation of capitalism's excess are managed today.
And I think that's because people are becoming suspicious of absolute ideological positions that think they have everything figured out. And that's because things are more complex. Just because you can't explain that complexity doesn't mean it's intellectually honest to fall back on a hand waive of propaganda "we need less regulation and more free market solutions" which is binary logic.
Upon discovery that binary logic isn't how humans works, and maybe isn't how future computers will work, people are becoming more comfortable with nuance, layers, and dynamic approaches to problems, rather than tribal grunts of capitalism being perfection as if there's no such thing as market failure.
Not one of these points is limited to capitalism. Markets are a necessary but not a sufficient condition of capitalism. People's urge to create wonderful things did exist in the millenia before 1750, they did exist in the eastern bloc, and every day today multiple great things people do in their free time, making no economic sense at all, pop up on HN.
Even in capitalist societies many if not most of the groundbreaking inventions and discoveries were and are state-funded.
The USSR beat us in almost every space milestone and would have beaten us to the moon if not for the untimely death of the guy running their space program.
It's like comparing North Korea with Germany - NK can send rockets to space, while Germany can't. But can you say that NK is ahead of Germany in terms of inventions?
That said, I can't stand it when people downvote comments pointing out objective, verifiable facts that they don't like. It happens all the time, and I despair a bit for the quality of discourse even possible in a community where that's a thing that people do.
That's what people born today face.
And/or starting the game with sums of money that differ by orders of magnitude between players.
Logically, everything will eventually be driven to that point. I'm not saying when it will happen, I'm not even saying it's a good or bad thing. I simply accept that at some point Capitalism is no longer going to be needed.
While capitalism does have its weaknesses, it also seems to be one of the driving forces behind modernity, which I think most of us can agree is a supremely good thing.
We've tried tearing down the system before. Communism failed, not because of failed implementation, but because the concept itself is a bad one. This is not to say that we should close ourselves off from thinking of new ways to organize our societies, but it seems that capitalism and all that it encourages is responsible for the 'rising tide' of global human civilization we've witnessed over the course of the industrial revolution to now. Sure there is inequality, but as they say, a rising tide lifts all boats. Would you want to be the average middle class or poor person 300 years ago, or today?
As innovation continues to change the material conditions of the world, our economic systems will evolve in response, probably for the better. Capitalism will not look the same in 100 years or 1000 years as it does today. But over time gradual development will improve the system, not some grand scheme that calls for tearing down capitalism and replacing it with something else.
This is a frustrating and arrogant thing to say. If you can honestly go through and thoroughly criticize the core collective works of great socialist thinkers like Engels, Marx, Lenin, Bakunin, Kropotkin, Goldman and the uncountable thousands who have poured thousands of hours into tomes which are freely available online to study and understand, then you should do so. I would love to read this! You'd probably become a very famous person! But coming out gung ho and so arrogantly conclude that all these people, and all the hard work they have done in both theory and praxis is kaput without a very strong argument behind you is pointless and childish. It stifles conversation and is the reason discussing economic systems with people who don't understand them is an exercise in futility.
If you want proof that "hard work" isn't necessarily "valuable work," simply start digging holes in your backyard. It is hard work. At the end of the day, though, you'll have constructed nothing of value (unless you appreciate the value of holes).
But, as you see, value is a subjective concept. Communism believes it to be objective. But what's valued in communism is simply the biases of its architects. Resources, then, aren't allocated through an objective pricing system weighing conflicting values, but through waits, favors, loyalties, and fiat. Eventually, the system becomes so corrupted it fails.
We've objectively seen the failure of the communist system across cultures over the last 100 years. By now, there should be no doubt about its inherent ills.
Now you've misunderstood me, I'm not saying that because they've done a lot of hard work that what they say is immediately relevant. I'm saying what they've said is relevant, and they've put in a lot of hard work to get their points across. You can't just handwave because in your ignorance you believe you're right and everyone else is wrong, you have to actually confront what they've said
There are plenty of examples of work not being valuable in capitalism too.
I'd put most obscure financial instruments up as one example.
But on the whole, much of communist ideology and theorizing is far removed from reality and suffers from a lack of understanding about human nature. Socialist description and perspective on society is interesting and can be enlightening, but its prescriptions are bad.
Many scientists and thinkers over the course of history have dedicated their entire lives to theories that are ultimately shown to be fairy-tails. It happens all the time.
You probably never played Monopoly as a child then :)
Also, perhaps you will find capitalism less cool when, say, Google decides to go into the exact same business as you are in now.
You know what's really really cool? A lot of people inventing stuff. Not only the ones that have parents that can help them live until their late twenties without have to work for a living. Socialism/communism aims to fix this. What I see is that China is having a tremendous creative boom right now.
1000x yes. It's incredibly frustrating to see folks whining about capitalism all the while doing so using an iPhone and MacBook Pro, not understanding the irony.
Thank heavens that the czars of capitalism have given us such a generous outlet for all that latent human potential—unlike say, starting a family, starting a full-time art project, starting a humanities Ph.D without crippling debt, starting a round of chemo while unemployed, or starting our dinners at 6pm like our ancestors managed to do for ~200,000 years.
Let me also say that I don't hate capitalism per se, it's more or less just a tool with no moral obligations. The problem with capitalism are the humans, like always, and Monopoly is perfect to experience the bad side of human nature: greed and the me vs. them attitude.
Do you think it would be possible to come up with rules for Monopoly, where everyone would be a winner, living in abundance? Absolutely, but that would be boring. If I can't be the best of all, then why bother. It's Me vs. Them, and totally screw Them...
Those people, whose families played Monopoly for long enough until now, and who were able to amass a lot of wealth and keep it within their small circle, they won't allow to change the rules. Because then they wouldn't be the Winner anymore. It's always Me First, and everyone else can die trying.
Edit: I've been really depressive the past 15 years, it started once I was old enough to realize how our world is run. The lack of empathy and social justice is really sickening. I tried to play the game, but I'm not good at it because I lack the attributes that are required to become good at it. I don't care about money, I just want to stay alive, take care of my family and code cool and useful things.
But I started to get a tiny little bit of hope that eventually things may drastically change in the future. Like I do think that we may be able to develop an AGI within this century. One that is rational and smarter than humans. I can totally understand Musks fear of an AGI that would try to destroy humanity (personally I hope it'd go only after the bad leadership :)), and while I think Musk has generally good intentions, he's still a hardcore capitalist, and I'm not sure if I want him and his buddies have too much say in this.
Another shorter term solution to some of the problems we have with capitalism is to setup systems based on Blockchain technologies. I'm really no expert in this area, but I believe it would be possible to set up a financial system that allows for transparency, privacy, but no anonymity and no speculations like we experience nowadays with cryptocurrencies. Something that prevents corruption, black money, etc.
Such blockchain technology could be also adapted for a voting system, where voter fraud then becomes impossible. One promising project I've recently discovered is Cardano SL [1], and the team behind it looks like they really want to make a change. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
A persistent campaign of propaganda aimed at capitalism. Because there are always either misguided "true believers" or corrupt glad-handers looking to exploit others for their own benefit, who are out there proselytizing for some socialist ideology and trying to tear down capitalism.
-Milton Friedman
That's a natural result of human intellectual progress and knowledge being passed down through generations.
So people now get to live a little longer, travel farther and faster, and absorb more banal entertainment than ever before. Who gives a fuck? None of that matters in this context.
The point you should focus on is how much of a share in the overall wealth and prosperity of their nation does a person have today? How much power and personal freedom?
Is it growing or shrinking?
It's shrinking and has been for decades. It's the increasing consolidation of wealth and the power and influence that naturally comes with that is why people are raging against a system that they can see has become totally unrestrained and rigged against them from birth.
GDP is held up as the gold standard metric of measuring how well a nation is doing, but all it really tells you is how prosperous it ther 'country' is as on the macro level.
It doesn't tell you that most of that wealth is concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people that are becoming obscenely wealthy while the lowest classes in society are becoming objectively poorer and less empowered to act.
You rephrase the argument and a working class stiff what he wants more, a shinier, faster car and a higher-resolution TV , or a greater stake in the economy and the resulting benefits that naturally occur as part of that and he will tell you the latter every damn time.
The problem is thinking like yours, where the proles should be happy that they get to be more consumerist and materialistic than ever before while the ones filling the world with shit nobody needs steal away the actual benefits of our system and entrench themselves for generations.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14820286 and marked it off-topic.
We have direct evidence that that is incorrect and any high school student knows it. Many, many times have we failed to progress due to being in systems that don't allow for it.
> Is it growing or shrinking?
Why would that matter to me as an individual? So long as my overall wealth is increasing, I don't care. I don't need to be making more than my neighbor to be happy with my life. As long as I still get the goods, I'm quite happy with this deal.
This is just plain wrong in terms of a way to think about the economy or my life.
Post it.
> Why would that matter to me as an individual? So long as my overall wealth is increasing
That's my point. It isn't, it just appears that way because you haven't looked past the shin y surface.
> This is just plain wrong in terms of a way to think about the economy or my life.
Subjective.
There are a lot of ordinary people who would say your way of thinking is wrong. Some actually want a stake in society, not an extra handful of rice per generation while a few at the top get an extra plantation.
Progress almost entirely stops in these places under these systems. Clearly, at some level there is a system effect.
It's a beautiful idea that can never work in practice because it depends on humans being a purely virtuous ideal of themselves, which they never will be. You'll always end up with some arsehole at the top trying to create a dynasty for himself.
Personally I'd prefer a more utopian vision of human society like the one in Star Trek. No money, just personal, spritual and intellectual pursuit. It won't happen though, people are too self-serving.
Anyway, progress did not grind to a halt under feudalism. There were lots of inventions and discoveries being made during the middle ages, the rate was just slower than today and while part of that was due to the inferior social system with limited personal freedoms it was also due to the far smaller human populations and resulting productive power, as well as the prevalence of religion and it's aggressively anti-science stance (the dark ages were one example of progress slowing down to nearly a halt).
I mean look,
http://www.lordsandladies.org/inventions-in-the-middle-ages....
First result on Google. Arguable some of the most important inventions in history, because they enabled all the discoveries that came after.
I hear the "stand on the shoulders of giants" argument and everything though - but I think there's definitely at least some effect from the system that should be acknowledged.
Oh I agree. I just don't think it is the sole reason for us being where we are.
The thing with technological progress (and by extension economic progress) is that it snowballs and grows exponentially.
If you took an early middle-age society and taught it the concepts of capitalism and they managed a seismic shift in their society to accommodate it, it would still take an incredibly long time for them to advance.
They might do it a bit quicker because people would be more free to spend and invest in what they wanted, and money would flow more freely, but they would still be limited by population and production power.
Population snowballs too, as does the sharing of knowledge that occurs alongside it and has probably been the number one driver of human progress.
Even the bottom 20% that everyone is so concerned about in the western world are better off than any time in history - heck, I have no qualms saying I'd rather be bottom 20% today than top 1% just 200 years ago. That is the level of productivity we've had, and primarily thanks to our economic system.
Could it use some tweaks? Sure, if you want to advocate free healthcare or college, go for it, but the main concepts are still quite good.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14820194 and marked it off-topic.
There is little historical comparison for what you quote as capitalism's success - nobody performed a double-blind trial to see if the industrial revolution and colonialism improved quality of life in non-capitalist systems.
Please, show me one country not rooted in capitalism which has "succeeded impressively" in recent decades.
If we lift the restrictions of "a few decades", you'd find that the USSR transformed a feudalist, barely-electrified nation into America's greatest opponent on the world stage, with a stake in the space race, in less than half a century.
And that's just the economic side of things.
You may not want to stop progressing, but ask Americans without healthcare coverage whether they would prefer government money going to research or to providing for their needs, and many of them will disagree with you.
And USSR never managed to turn to US greatest opponent, despite killing millions trying.
>USSR never managed to turn to US greatest opponent
This is a very interesting take on world history. What do you consider the USSR's role in the world to be during the Cold War? What makes you reject most modern historical thought?
And USSR's role was the same as North Korea today - poor, unpredictable totalitarian country with nukes.
>And USSR's role was the same as North Korea today The US is not currently producing a huge amount of propaganda in a culture war against North Korea. There is no scare of North-Korean-sympathisers infiltrating American society, or its government. The West is not fighting any proxy wars with the Koreans, nor are they engaging in international competitions equivalent to the space race. There is no "North Korean sphere" - North Korea has no cultural or political influence over a broad group of nations around the world. North Korea does not constitute some kind of "fourth world".
There is no comparison.
"Feeling powerless and forgotten" is something that just doesn't matter compared to those in my opinion.