I have always struggled with the idea of\u00a0capitalism even from an early age. \u00a0I guess I took my teachers seriously when I was told we should share our things. \u00a0It never seemed fair that some should have so much while other have so little.<\/p>\n
But where did my deep seated disgust with the whole system develop? \u00a0I have traced it back to my first year of college at WKU<\/a>. \u00a0I took a Micro Economics class as part of my Gen-ed requirements. \u00a0Overall I liked the class, and enjoyed the teacher (we are even friends), but there was one day that I found particularly disturbing.<\/p>\n We were learning about oligopolies<\/a> and collusion<\/a>; to demonstrate the effects, we performed a class exercise. \u00a0We were divided into two teams, each of which were\u00a0responsible\u00a0for selling similar widgets. \u00a0Each “day” one representative from each team would meet together and determine the cost of widgets for that day. \u00a0The first day we could either sell them for $10 or $12. \u00a0If we both decided to sell for $10 we would get $100 each, if we both decided to sell for $12, we would get $120 each. \u00a0However, if one of us sold for $10 and the other for $12, then the lower priced seller would earn $150 and the higher priced seller would earn $50. \u00a0This was intended to mimic the increased sales that would occur due to lower prices.<\/p>\n Of course there is a catch. \u00a0After the “representatives” met they would go back their teams and then determine what their prices would be. \u00a0It was at this point that teams could decide if they wanted to be honest or if they wanted to scheme and undercut their\u00a0competitor. \u00a0We did this for five “days” and each day the prices would increase so by the end of experiment the widgets could sell for either $50 or $60 and the profits would be $500|$500 or $600|$600 or $750|$250. \u00a0Oh, and at the end of the game, the teams would be rewarded with bonus points on their next test.<\/p>\n If you follow the game it makes sense that at every meeting between teams you would both agree to set the higher cost. \u00a0If both teams are trustworthy you can earn 20% more that if both teams are dishonest. \u00a0However, if you can get the other team to trust you and you undercut them you earn 50% more (and the other team only earns 50% of what they would have). The game ended up being so\u00a0disturbing\u00a0to me I still remember exactly how it played out:<\/p>\n Here were the scores:<\/p>\n If we had all been honest all the time, everyone in the class would have received 14.4 bonus points (Both teams would have earned $1440). \u00a0If we had all be dishonest\/untrusting we would have all earned 12 bonus points ($1200 each). \u00a0As it played out, my team won 17.7 bonus points and our\u00a0competitors only got 12.7.<\/p>\n The\u00a0experience\u00a0still makes me uneasy when I think about. \u00a0It was the dishonesty and selfishness built into the system that really bothered me. \u00a0I was able to be better off because someone else wasn’t as fortunate. \u00a0On the other hand, the losing team received less because they were trusting and desired the best for everyone.<\/p>\n Obviously this is not how the\u00a0system\u00a0practically works in the real world, but the principles are right. \u00a0Everyone has to look out for their best\u00a0interests\u00a0and the only way you can do that is by hurting others. \u00a0If you are a buyer you are trying to get something for the lowest price possible, regardless of how much time, effort, or money the seller might have invested in the widgets; if you are the seller, you are going to try and extract the most money out of your product regardless of how much you have invested and what the buyers circumstances may be.<\/p>\n The system works and everyone benefits if people are honest, but once that trust is lost, everyone is worse off.<\/p>\n So… if you boil it down… the real reason I hate\u00a0capitalism is because of a game I played once in a class where I was lucky enough to get extra bonus points because I was shrewd and dishonest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have always struggled with the idea of\u00a0capitalism even from an early age. \u00a0I guess I took my teachers seriously when I was told we should share our things. \u00a0It never seemed fair that some should have so much while other have so little. But where did my deep seated disgust with the whole system […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[549,550,551,552,281,236],"class_list":["post-1203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-thoughts","tag-capitalism","tag-college","tag-economics","tag-game","tag-money","tag-wku"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1203"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1208,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1203\/revisions\/1208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/kickert.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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