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Monopoly with a real distribution of wealth and income

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Sat, 04/04/2015 - 08:32 by matt noyes

Simple idea:

Play Monopoly (or Life) with an initial distribution of wealth and income that matches the one prevailing in your society.

The flow:

Prepare the game. Joker gives participants a Monopoly set and a source like Wealth Inequality in America (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPKKQnijnsM) or G William Domhoff's "Wealth, Income and Power" (http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html) and asks participants to divide the property and cash among the players in a way that mirrors the actual division of income and wealth in the United States.

Start play as usual, and see what happens.

Discuss: what do you see? What do you think of it? What do you make of it?

Variations:

Redistribute the wealth in various ways, seeing how it affects the play.

Ask participants to alter the Chance and Community Chest cards to reflect real conditions and disparate effects on those with/out wealth and income.

Play the original Landlord's Game -- http://landlordsgame.info/rules/lg-1904p_patent.html

Play Co-opoly -- http://store.toolboxfored.org/co-opoly-the-game-of-co-operatives/

Play Poor Bastards -- http://www.re.rollingearth.org/?q=content/%E5%A4%A7%E8%B2%A7%E6%B0%91-po...

Monopoly board image: http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/2014226/rs_560x415-1403260...

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