How sharing changes the game.
I recently came across an article in New York Magazine that discussed the relationship between wealth and empathy, or the lack thereof. A couple of Berkeley undergrads rigged a Monopoly game, and had two players participate; one started out with twice the cash of the second, twice the money each time he passed "GO", and got to use 2 dice on each roll. The second player got to use one die.
Of course, the favored player had a Rolls Royce as his playing piece.
The researchers sat in another room, monitoring reactions, down to facial expressions and body language.
The wealth difference, at first, made the favored player recognize the awkwardness of his position. But over time, he became -- as the article indicates -- an asshole. Not meeting his lesser's gaze, stone cold expression as he takes his money, empathy out the window.
Given that the study was done at Berkeley and had "liberal" results, the researchers received the expected flame mails from conservatives.
But reading this article reminded me of an event over a decade ago, when I, along with 4 other friends, sat down to play Monopoly. It was, actually, the last time I played the game.
Over the course of about 1/2 hour, every property was purchased -- however, nobody had a monopoly on anything. I owned Boardwalk and Marvin Gardens; another player, Cheryl, owned Park Place and both Ventnor and Atlantic Avenues. The other properties were likewise spread out among the 5 of us.
One time around the board, Cheryl and I were neck-and-neck as we passed "Free Parking"; I landed on one of her yellow properties, and her next move, she landed on Marvin Gardens. Then further on, she landed on Boardwalk immediately after I landed on Park Place.
So, I suggested a deal: "Cheryl - don't pay me! Let's do this instead: you give me Park Place, and I will give you Marvin Gardens. From now on, we won't charge each other when we land on each other's property -- instead, I get 1/2 of YOUR yellow property profits, and you get 1/2 of MY blue property profits."
Now, two things:
• the rules say you can't loan money to another player; it doesn't specify anything about making "deals".
• the other 3 players immediately reacted "HEY YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!".
..after a trip to the rules, what instantly happened after that, was that everybody made the same deals with whomever they shared related properties - railroads, utilities, everything.
Every time anybody made a move, they landed on something they shared with one, two, or three people (three people originally owned the 4 railroads), or had to pay to someone, and see that individual split and pay out part of the profit.
Hilarity ensued.
We shortly realized that nobody was going to "win"; furthermore, nobody was going to "lose".
After about an hour of play, we simply quit the game -- we spent well over an hour after that discussing what it was that we had done. Basically, we wrecked the game - Monopoly became everybody-shares-everything.
The result of our quasi-socialist undertaking was that everyone was happy. Quite the opposite of the Berkeley experiment. However, if our experience were to be examined and reported, it would elicit the same flame mails the Berkeley game did, I'm sure.
But now, I'm not really interested in playing Monopoly anymore; I would try to create the same set up. And what if, by luck of the dice, someone did form a monopoly and wasn't interested in "dealing"? I suppose the rest of us would have to form a union.