Monopoly Might Be a Zero-Sum Game, but Wealth Isn’t.
Foundation for Economic Education
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In this episode Seamus and the gang play Monopoly and discuss the fixed-pie fallacy — the least savory of all economic tropes.
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Written by Seamus Coughlin & Jennifer Maffessanti
Animated by Seamus Coughlin
Produced by Sean W. Malone
11.12.2021
The fact that you said Monopoly is a lot of fun makes me distrust you.
But the very wealthy can indirectly cause others to get poorer when they spread their influence which damages small businesses
1:47 Does this graph account for inflation? Because in the 1970s the dollar was worth much more than it is today.
Also, the fixed pie theory makes sense, because the pie can't continuously expand.
Capitalism relies on perpetual growth, but we can't have that.
And we're arguably rapidly approaching the limit of the wealth we can generate before completely depleting earth's resources and destroying the environment.
Four years later and covid has totally eliminated the arguments made in my mind about "wealth" in this vid
He did not even mention the creator of the game made it specifically to criticize capitalism. Before it was bought out and changed enough to be sold in a capitalist society.
Wealth is theoretical and may be limitless but money is physical and is finite and our economy runs on money not wealth
Yes the fixed pie fallacy exists.
However the reason why Americans believe the poor are getting poorer is because of sinking real wages and buying power of the USD
Monopoly is a game designed to show that landlords add nothing but added costs. That's why the rent without houses is reasonable but the costs go up exponentially with added houses. The game basically advocates for the house rent to be the same as the land rent. It's not a love letter to capitalism, that's what Mattel turned into
Growth of wealth for all is inflation. Those whose wealth grows slowest or shrinks end up losing. Those whose wealth grows faster than inflation win. So wealth is a zero sum game. It's only the wealthy politicians who want you to believe the crap about everyone winning
one cannot own more than the universe because that is the sum total of all existence. the universe expands on its own naturally and there isnt a damn thing humans can do to influence that growth rate.
My question for anyone who believes in the fixed-pie fallacy (AKA zero-sum economics): How much would the old twin towers of the World Trade Center have been worth, if the company that owned them had decided to sell them in August 2001? I would guess at least hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions. When those towers were destroyed on 9/11, where did all of that wealth go?
The creation of wealth is usually incremental and distributed, so it can be easy to miss for those who do not know what to look for, or by those who are deliberately blind to it. The destruction of wealth can also be gradual and hidden (things degrading and wearing out over time), but it can also be abrupt, humongous, and spectacular, as it was on 9/11.
If wealth is ever destroyed, than total wealth cannot be constant. If wealth is never created, then the total wealth of everything would be the total wealth of centuries ago, minus all of the destruction of wealth that has occurred since (think of everything destroyed by wars and natural disasters since then). Divide that reduced total wealth by the much larger current population, and we would all have died of poverty years ago.
Ok so wealth is supposedly not fixed, got it, but is it not the zero sum game which makes people more creative/innovative, and therefor wealth seem less zero sum? Even if over time more people proportionally are wealthier, that doesn't completely erase the win/lose nature of the endeavor enough to say definitively it isn't zero sum. Wealth is complex, as currency is the thing by which we account for anything we value really, and we've come to value more stuff as more's been invented and appreciated…
But I still don't see how this ELIMINATES zero sum game… can somebody help me out?
Fun fact monopoly was first made by lizzie maggie a georgist and is supposed to show how landlords are awful and parasites on the earth taking people labor and money.
Well, when a capitalist "creates" something new out of thin air, isn't he just digging resources out of the ground, which are finite by nature, and dusting them off and putting them on store shelves, where they will soon be back in a landfill?
Rich people's propoganda delivered with cute cartoons. This has been going on for centuries.
Yeah, with fixed amount of player and increasing amount of housing, the house should be cheaper, not more expensive.
The biggest inaccuracy in this video was when he said monopoly was "fun". 😑
Thebaby going Gaga really got me XD nice video overall
But what about the struggle for resources, competition between companies, and competition of the unemployed to find work?
Wow this was defintely made by idiotic neoliberals
Making the pie bigger and slicing the pieces thinner does not create wealth. It is finite. Just because people get more wealth doesn't make them better off, all thanks to inflation. We might as well continue to make as much as we did 20 years ago, because an increase in everybody's income does not make them more wealthy. Also, the disparity of wealth is getting worse. This video is way outdated.
Looking back at this its also become very common to brake the rules of the game and allow people to barter, make deals, take loans, team up, work together, and so on. Making it clear mist people do there best to avoid a fixed Pie situation and try to keep the game going.