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   Stuart :progress_pride: (slowe@mastodon.me.uk)'s status on Monday, 23-Jan-2023 22:53:46 JST Stuart :progress_pride:

   I haven't played Monopoly for many years now. The last game was with three housemates at university. One housemate was winning and really enjoying his triumph over the rest of us. So I suggested to my other two housemates that we form a cooperative. We would let each other off rents on our properties. The standards rents would apply to anyone not in the coop. And you could leave the coop if you wanted. None of this is forbidden in the rules of Monopoly because it has little market regulation.

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     Stuart :progress_pride: (slowe@mastodon.me.uk)'s status on Monday, 23-Jan-2023 22:58:16 JST Stuart :progress_pride:

     in reply to

     Within a remarkably short space of time the monopolist had lost his dominance and the rest of us had flourished. He went bankrupt and the rest of us agreed to end the game as joint victors. I felt as though we perhaps played it more to the spirit of the original game that Monopoly had been derived from and found a non-monopolist solution.

     on-lain ✔ᵛᵉʳᶦᶠᶦᵉᵈ and hypolite like this.
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     Stuart :progress_pride: (slowe@mastodon.me.uk)'s status on Monday, 23-Jan-2023 23:02:11 JST Stuart :progress_pride:

     in reply to

     A few years ago I shared this story on Twitter and then had angry libertarian men complain that I'd cheated and had actually made a cartel, not a cooperative. They weren't happy that I pointed out that no rules had been broken. In fact it was the lack of market regulation in Monopoly that allowed us to do what we did. Plus we did it fully openly and the fourth player was able to join our coop if he'd wanted.

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     Stuart :progress_pride: (slowe@mastodon.me.uk)'s status on Monday, 23-Jan-2023 23:06:03 JST Stuart :progress_pride:

     in reply to

     Although Monopoly is so often presented/framed as an individualistic game of capitalist dominance, it doesn't actually have to be played like that. The system might strongly encourage that but the players can behave differently. A better way is possible.

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     Stuart :progress_pride: (slowe@mastodon.me.uk)'s status on Monday, 23-Jan-2023 23:06:04 JST Stuart :progress_pride:

     in reply to

     I still don't agree that we were a cartel as there was no secrecy, deceit, or defrauding going on. We were very open about forgiving rent and doing better deals within the coop than the 'official' prices outside the coop. Anyway it was funny to see libertarian men be unhappy about something happening due to very limited market regulation (no rules saying you couldn't discount rent or undercut the guide prices).

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     Stuart :progress_pride: (slowe@mastodon.me.uk)'s status on Monday, 23-Jan-2023 23:13:03 JST Stuart :progress_pride:

     in reply to

     It did teach me that a bunch of libertarian men are all in favour of lower regulation until you use that lack of regulation to behave cooperatively to help each other.

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