Everyone says the game is over!
Why “Monopoly”?
In 1904, Elizabeth Magee received a patent for a new board game, the “owner’s game”. The game includes representative money, bonds, and mortgages; In return, players collect rent, borrow money, and pay taxes. Maggie’s goal in inventing this game was to explain and explain the impact of real estate rental on the economy and people’s lives, in line with her firm belief in the ideas of American journalist and economist Henry George.
Henry George believed that rents should be distributed to society as a whole. Accordingly, he believes in the principle of a single tax: a tax on the value of property. The value of a property is the closest indicator of the level of economic growth of an investment made in that property. The imposition of property value tax will be more equal and will reflect the real economic growth of all sectors of society, and manufacturing activities will be exempt from direct taxes. More importantly, this tax will curb real estate speculation and price increases due to the ability of high-value owners to hold on to the best vacant lot to profit from it later.
The Owner’s Game quickly spread to the college academy, where it excelled in its function as a teaching aid for explaining George’s principles. Over time, the game spread in popular circles, changed and evolved until it became the game of “Monopoly” (ie monopoly). This game, the most popular board game in the world today, has become-in its simplicity-an effective and highly descriptive learning tool, as it demonstrates the requirements for creating conditions for monopolistic competition and its path.
In the cafe, the only person sitting at the new table looked at the cafe owner, then at the hexagonal board and at the box lying next to the table. The box says “Settlers of Catan”.
What is “Katan”?
In 1995, Klaus Tepper developed a board game based on using resources found in virgin lands to develop and colonize them. The game contains communities, cities, different types of resources used to build communities and cities, as well as a “thief”. The thief or the thief is the factor that keeps the game in balance and prevents one of the competitors from being clearly ahead of the others. Ftweber designed the game in such a way that players can score through multiple methods and options, making the game softer, while at the same time becoming the owner of the largest share of resources that are more likely to be lost if stolen or turned activate the thief card. . The shape of the board prevents most any resource from being placed in a player’s hands, so no single player can master the game. Thus, the feature of trading or the exchange of resources becomes a place for explaining how free markets work, where prices vary depending on the scarcity or availability of resources in the hands of players. . In other words, the goal of the game is not to be the winner on the board, because the game remains balanced until the end. Indirectly, it serves as an educational tool for dismantling economic monopolies and subjecting them to the work of the free market. In recent years, this game has taken over the board game world to the point where some experts have called it a “monopoly killer”.
In a cafe, a single person at a table soon began reading the new rules of the game and got used to the new and unfamiliar shape of the board. As for the other players, they continue to play where the cafe owner no longer sees the point, as they think he will reward them if they continue to play.
The reorganization of the Lebanese system of political economy remains the main name of the current local stage, with all its dimensions and local complexity or those associated with the global economy.
In Lebanon, the old game of political economy is over, rents have evaporated, competition is dead, and players are gone unnoticed. In fact, some ignore it, such as the ostrich hiding its head in the sand. As for sitting at the new table, he began to learn new rules of the game, such as a kattan, that the board was new and unfamiliar, and the ground did not have any form of development and growth, and the meaning was began to protect. and manage resources. This path began last summer with the aggravation of the crisis in oil derivatives and the initiatives and measures that followed it, and continues to this day with a series of crises. As for the other players, they continue to play where the cafe owner no longer sees the point, as they think he will reward them when they silence him. They still dream of reviving the financial sector in its current form – either through internal methods or through the pacification of the US – so that the old system of political economy goes back to the old days, and they change their positions. in the capital process. distribution, and, in turn, restore their political positions. But they soon discovered that there were no prizes in the canceled games. The funniest thing is the spectator seeking to have space at the table to sit down and take part in the finished game.
The restructuring of the Lebanese political economic system remains the main name of the current local stage, with all its dimensions and local complexities, or those associated with a single global economy and the interdependence of Lebanon’s position on it. This name is certainly broader than the Lebanese understanding of economics, an understanding of accounting that limits economics to diagrams and mathematical models attached to certain measures of political connections. In the midst of the raging blaze of election campaigns, the calculation of each voter should be included in the ranking of this issue among the agenda priorities of the competing political forces. In other words, it is embarrassing that after a while it is discovered that one’s own political habits are forcing you to bet on a player who does not understand that the game is over and that he or she has lost.
*Lebanese writer
Source: Al Akhbar
