Re:Populism and the Economics of Globalization [pdf]
by anigbrowl on Wednesday June 21, 2017 @03:24PM
(#14607067)
At what point do we reward human accomplishment
At the point where you start finding lots of nice houses and comfortable-looking cars. Lot so fo people already enjoy substantial rewards for accomplishment. That's great. The problem is that sometimes all the benefits are ascribed to accomplishment and luck is completely discounted.
Look, you've played Monopoly, right? You take a bunch of players of about equal skill level, put them into a game, and who is doing well after 10 rounds of the board is a matter of both skill and luck. Eventually one player will end up with all the money and the others will go bankrupt, because that's the outcome the game is structured to produce.
Now, Monopoly is just a game and so players could in a tournament play multiple games to minimize the luck factor and figure out which players have the greatest skill. But in the real world you don't get to try out a different life strategy every year and then reset on January 1 for a fresh round. If you start out with poor luck, then your disadvantages can accumulate just as your advantages can.
Further, people don't all start out with the same beginning conditions as they do in a game of Monopoly. Nobody wants to come in and join a game of Monopoly already in progress because many of the strategic options have already become unavailable. Likewise it would be a less fun game to play if initial cash allocations were random and some players started out with much more or less than others.
At the point where you start finding lots of nice houses and comfortable-looking cars. Lot so fo people already enjoy substantial rewards for accomplishment. That's great. The problem is that sometimes all the benefits are ascribed to accomplishment and luck is completely discounted.
Look, you've played Monopoly, right? You take a bunch of players of about equal skill level, put them into a game, and who is doing well after 10 rounds of the board is a matter of both skill and luck. Eventually one player will end up with all the money and the others will go bankrupt, because that's the outcome the game is structured to produce.
Now, Monopoly is just a game and so players could in a tournament play multiple games to minimize the luck factor and figure out which players have the greatest skill. But in the real world you don't get to try out a different life strategy every year and then reset on January 1 for a fresh round. If you start out with poor luck, then your disadvantages can accumulate just as your advantages can.
Further, people don't all start out with the same beginning conditions as they do in a game of Monopoly. Nobody wants to come in and join a game of Monopoly already in progress because many of the strategic options have already become unavailable. Likewise it would be a less fun game to play if initial cash allocations were random and some players started out with much more or less than others.