Home
/
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
/
This board game reveals the horrible truth about socialism
This board game reveals the horrible truth about socialism
Mar 16, 2025 6:11 PM

John Elliott and his friends at Diogenes Games created Socialism: The Game as a free-market lampoon of the board game Monopoly. The rules of the interminable Parker Brothers/Hasbro favorite teach children a distorted version of the free market (and its length gives adults a foretaste of Purgatory).

Diogenes’ “unofficial expansion set” turns the game on its head: its object is for all players to attain equal poverty.

In this thoughtful reimagining, the banker is replaced by the Federal Directorate of Redistributive Services (FDR), which takes half of every player’s paycheck upon passing “Go” and doles out $100 subsidies to players who can’t pay the fines that accrue with increasing regularity. FDR uses eminent domain to nationalize players’ private property, railroads, and utilities. Meanwhile, “Communist Chest” and “Fat Chance” cards present scenarios such as a $15 minimum wage forcing all players to cough up more money for each hotel. The game cannot end until every player has less than $300 left.

Elliott’s son, described as “a very aggressive” player, said the game taught him not to invest in anything, because “I’m going to lose my property, and I’m going to have pay more taxes.” That means he responded to economic incentives and learned the game’s lesson. “Socialism kills the entrepreneurial spirit, and maybe the human spirit, too,” pany representative said in an interview. (One may add 100 million human bodies to the mix, as well.)

But what if the players were more resistant? A writer at Vice decided to test the anti-socialist game’s efficacy by playing it with four members of the Democratic Socialists of America. (I thought they might be Bernie Sanders, Keith Ellison, Jan Schakowsky, and David Bonior but alas, they were more obscure leftists.)

The results confirmed every free-market caricature of socialism. Even simulated socialism encouraged bribery, despair, Schadenfreude, and rejoicing when others are sent to re-education camps:

[T]he socialists appeared to be having a good time, even cheering at my habit of unlucky dice rolls sending me to frequent rehabilitation center visits. “We’re punishing your corruption and keeping you honest,” said Rachel.” (Emphasis added.) …

[A]nother novel twist from Socialism’s rulebook emerged in the form of the People’s Action Committee on Commerce and Equity (PEACCE), the governing body that oversaw all permit requests, purchases, and sales of property.As unanimous consent was required for the approval of any transaction, holdouts and bribes soon monplace.

The game’s results mirrored reality. As Sovietologist Ilya Zemtsov noted, “Without bribery, the socialist economy could not function.”

Vice wrote that government handouts had an anesthetizing effect, making “these moments of voting sabotage seemed more like friends messing with each other for the sheer fun of it.”

That illustrates the limits of the game.

In actual socialism, the proletariat enjoyed empty grocery stores while the Politburo frolicked in numerous summer homes, known as dachas. “Dachas are allocated according to rank,” wrote Zemtsov. “It would, for example, be unthinkable for a Politburo member to own the same type of dacha as a Politburo candidate.”

The game does not reproduce such stark political favoritism. Nor does it answer another question: What happens after the game, when the productive segment of the economy has been destroyed, its accumulated capital depleted, and the handouts end? Economic implosion sends ripples through society more malignant than the DSA members’ laughter.

“Nature,” wrote Desiderius Erasmus in his In Praise of Folly, “has sown a seed of evil in the hearts of mortals, especially in the more thoughtful men, which makes them dissatisfiedwith their own lot and envious of another’s.”

Western Christian principles consider envy a weed to be uprooted from the soul. Socialism sees envy as a kernel to be watered, succored, and (undeniably) fertilized until it bears its bitter fruit.

Thus, as government fines and fees put one player after another in the poor house (and out of the game), the DSA members said, “I really like some of these rules,” and “I’d actually want to see this happen in the real world.”

Behind the idealistic façade of creating an earthly utopia of equality lies the envious desire to ground other people down, to punish them for rising to the full height of their abilities.

Margaret Thatcher once said that socialists “would rather that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich.”

Modern-day socialists cannot deny her analysis. They have confirmed it between chuckles and rolls of the dice.

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
RELIGION & LIBERTY ONLINE
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on Proverbs 18:6-7   (Read Proverbs 18:6-7)   What mischief bad men do to themselves by their ungoverned tongues!   Proverbs 18:6 In-Context   4 The words of the mouth are deep waters, but the fountain of wisdom is a rushing stream.   5 It is not good to be partial to the wicked and so deprive the innocent of...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on James 3:13-18   (Read James 3:13-18)   These verses show the difference between men's pretending to be wise, and their being really so. He who thinks well, or he who talks well, is not wise in the sense of the Scripture, if he does not live and act well. True wisdom may be know by the...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on John 14:18-24   (Read John 14:18-24)   Christ promises that he would continue his care of his disciples. I will not leave you orphans, or fatherless, for though I leave you, yet I leave you this comfort, I will come to you. I will come speedily to you at my resurrection. I will come daily to...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on Ephesians 2:1-10   (Read Ephesians 2:1-10)   Sin is the death of the soul. A man dead in trespasses and sins has no desire for spiritual pleasures. When we look upon a corpse, it gives an awful feeling. A never-dying spirit is now fled, and has left nothing but the ruins of a man. But if...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on Proverbs 20:3   (Read Proverbs 20:3)   To engage in quarrels is the greatest folly that can be. Yield, and even give up just demands, for peace' sake.   Proverbs 20:3 In-Context   1 Wine is a mocker and beer a brawler; whoever is led astray by them is not wise.   2 A king's wrath strikes terror like...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on Romans 1:16-17   (Read Romans 1:16-17)   In these verses the apostle opens the design of the whole epistle, in which he brings forward a charge of sinfulness against all flesh; declares the only method of deliverance from condemnation, by faith in the mercy of God, through Jesus Christ; and then builds upon it purity of...
Verse of the Day
  1 John 2:28 In-Context   26 I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.   27 As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit-just...
Verse of the Day
  Revelation 1:8 In-Context   6 and has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father-to him be glory and power for ever and ever! Amen.   7 Look, he is coming with the clouds,Daniel 7:13and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and all peoples on earth will mourn because of him.Zech. 12:10So...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on Psalm 25:1-7   (Read Psalm 25:1-7)   In worshipping God, we must lift up our souls to him. It is certain that none who, by a believing attendance, wait on God, and, by a believing hope, wait for him, shall be ashamed of it. The most advanced believer both needs and desires to be taught of...
Verse of the Day
  Commentary on Today's Verse   Commentary on James 3:1-12   (Read James 3:1-12)   We are taught to dread an unruly tongue, as one of the greatest evils. The affairs of mankind are thrown into confusion by the tongues of men. Every age of the world, and every condition of life, private or public, affords examples of this. Hell has more to do...
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved