Everyone knows the popular Hasbro exclusive board game Monopoly. Players take turns moving their pieces around a board representing properties, and the goal of the game is to continue to accumulate wealth to a point where you bankrupt your opponents, leaving you as the sole survivor. Whilst being a great game when we were younger, times have changed, and it is now considered one of the poorer designed board games ever, seeing no evolution other than aesthetics and flavour with new iterations.
What I want to write about is the few things I have learnt through a simplistic game:
1. The world is a pie.
Opportunists and entrepreneurs would probably shoot me for this, but the truth is simple: there is a finite amount of resources on this planet with an increasingly growing number of individuals. If you take more of the pie, you are also taking away from others the opportunity to have that portion of the pie (I am simplifying the concepts as there are indeed ways of obtaining pieces of the pie from others, but I digress). Monopoly delivers this idea through its main mechanic: the ownership and capitalism of properties.
2. Your circumstances matter (with the help of a bit of luck, skill, and/or fate, depending on whether you are a determinist).
Whether you start first or last, and whether you land on more unsold properties when you have the funds to buy it (opportunities) is the key factor of success. You tend to be on the losing end when you are the eighth person to go in Monopoly. This is strikingly aligned with the way capital works in the real world: if you are in the correct place and time with the correct resources, you have a head start compared to others (especially since capital can be inherited).
3. You are forced to consume (your choices are limited).
Have you ever wondered why you HAVE to pay rent each time you land on someone's property? What would happen if you could opt to pay nothing and sleep on the streets? Also, why are you just endlessly looping around the world until you either bankrupt others or go bust yourself? Yes, the game would be pointless without those mechanics, but it is also a very bleak representation of the real world's consumption culture where we never seem to question our spending, or the choices that we are able to make everyday.
4. The bank will never go bust.
Again, this depressingly mirrors the banking systems in the world today, where bankers have so much power and wealth, but are never responsible for economic collapse where they will just be bailed out by governments.
5. There can be only one winner.
Yes, it is common for multiple collaborations, economic immunities, etc. to exist, but the end goal is still for one singular individual to claim victory over others, which leads to the inevitable backstabs.
6. Often, the best thing to do is to commit a crime.
Yes, the jail is the Swiss safe-haven in Monopoly, where you can prevent yourself from moving around the board and paying rent, whilst still being able to collect. We don't even need to discuss how the rich get away with legally ambiguous actions (and therefore, more moolah).
So far, most of the lessons seem to be very discomforting, no?
Surprisingly enough, the original creator of the precursor to Monopoly, Elizabeth (Lizzie) J. Magie Phillips, created The Landlord's Game to illustrate the single tax theory of Henry George, and the negative aspects of concentrating land in private monopolies. In her version, there is an alternative method to 'winning', which is to, upon agreement of all parties, divert all rents into a socialistic common pot.
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| So green! |
