Economics Questions

Re: "People read too much Hayek back then"

Rugged Free-Marketeer — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 23:54:12 GMT

Talking about board games... here's a particularly amusing one. It was a business venture by an American Marxist professor of politics named Bertell Ollman.

Re: "People read too much Hayek back then"

Willy Truth — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 23:44:10 GMT

Sounds like a horribly frustrating game! Haha...

I think the best parallel for the inflationary policies and the Fed itself would be some sort of Jenga spin off.

Re: "People read too much Hayek back then"

Aristippus — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 23:39:18 GMT

I've actually designed a board game where players attempt to take over a free market by buying votes in order to get freebies, stifle competition through regulation, and set up central banking. ABCT is incorporated, with inflation and boom-bust cycles created when the central bank is in play (under free market, there's deflation each turn and no boom-bust).

Re: "People read too much Hayek back then"

Andris Birkmanis — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 17:02:13 GMT

Stolen from the comments on one of these Reddit posts:

An-Cap RISK goes like this: All teams line up their soldiers, look at each other, and then realize peaceful trade will yield higher gains with a lot less... um... risk.

Re: "People read too much Hayek back then"

Wheylous — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 16:40:50 GMT

I found the links. There are two parts:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/ub339/free_market_monopoly_board_game/

http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/vccjg/free_market_monopoly_update/

Re: "People read too much Hayek back then"

Wheylous — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 16:30:41 GMT

On the topic of Monopoly:

Parker's philosophy deviated from the prevalent theme of board game design; he believed that games should be played for enjoyment and did not need to emphasize morals and values.

If we are to believe his words.

Also, a guy on the AnCap subreddit decided he would try to make a "free market" monopoly game that would be a lot more realistic. He said that he made a version of it and started playing and with the added dimensions to the game it became a lot harder to win :P

I wish I could find it right now.

Re: "People read too much Hayek back then"

Aristippus — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 07:52:22 GMT

It IS interesting how little love Mises gets considering all the influence he provided. And forget about Rothbard.

A little truth is a dangerous thing.

where do ancaps take offense to Hayek's philosophy again? Monetarist?

Certainly not for monetarism - from the 70's Hayek advocated a free market in money. Usually it's because in some of his works in the 60's and 70's he said that a small welfare state is fine, in fact he thought that it shouldn't be considered coercive. His final work, however - The Fatal Conceit - has very little if anything that a free market anarchist would disagree with. In fact I think it's probably the best introduction to market anarchism.

Re: "People read too much Hayek back then"

Willy Truth — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 07:40:06 GMT

Psychology is a battering ram for all manners of ridiculous public policy. Too easily manipulated, even for a soft science.

Re: "People read too much Hayek back then"

Willy Truth — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 07:38:20 GMT

It IS interesting how little love Mises gets considering all the influence he provided. And forget about Rothbard. The only time I ever see him referenced (all 3 times), it's always something about how "right wing extremists" think we should privatize the ocean.

A few years ago, in my Western Civ History class, we were assigned to read something from Keynes' General Theory. I asked my adjunct professor why they only gave us one side of the story and he, surprisingly, agreed.

It's been a while since I've read the road to serfdom--where do ancaps take offense to Hayek's philosophy again? Monetarist?

Re: "People read too much Hayek back then"

Praetyre — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 03:26:03 GMT

I swear to Freud, "neo-liberal" is the hipster leftist equivalent of "neo-confederate". Also, they might actually have a point regarding folks reading too much Hayek; look at the amount of times he's presented as second only to Friedman as a free market advocate, when the media's forced to give any remotely non-statist view of market relations a spokesman, while Mises gets totally sidelined.

Re: "People read too much Hayek back then"

Sphairon — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 02:58:57 GMT

RSAnimate has such a socialist bent that their videos stretch all the way to the Kremlin. It's a shame they have such good animation to back it up.

My favorite is probably the one where some psychology professor tells us that choice is evil and gives us anxiety. Yawn.

Re: "People read too much Hayek back then"

Willy Truth — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 02:04:17 GMT

Well it's because as we move our pieces through life, we are unwitting slaves to...er, people who have things we want?

Re: "People read too much Hayek back then"

Aristippus — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 01:42:26 GMT

In a sociology class I took in undergrad, we did an 'exercise' where everyone in the class played monopoly, only each player was given a certain amount of money and hotels at the beginning. Within a few turns only the ones who began rich survived and everyone else lost.

That was kind of the whole point of the game 'Monopoly' - Georgist propaganda. Whoever buys up the land can force you to pay rent to them - didn't that always seem like a strange feature of the game?

"People read too much Hayek back then"

Willy Truth — Mon, 29 Oct 2012 01:14:17 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0

"Neo liberal doctrine" and "access to all the world's labor supplies", coupled with an "excessive power of capital" created the world wide depression. If you don't "join an anti-capitalism group, we're going to repeat the process".

This video has way too many views.

I think it's so funny that, ineveitably, "evil" capitalists will be depicted as Mr. Money bags from Monopoly or giant, disembodied boots stomping on workers.

In a sociology class I took in undergrad, we did an 'exercise' where everyone in the class played monopoly, only each player was given a certain amount of money and hotels at the beginning. Within a few turns only the ones who began rich survived and everyone else lost.