Monopoly, for example, is a zero sum game. There is no possibility of increasing the supply nor making more efficient use of existing supply. Win-win solutions are pretty much impossible.
>Monopoly is a child's game that has no connection with how markets actually work.
Those aren't mutually exclusive. As far as I understand, the idea of Monopoly isn't to show how markets work. Its to show how finite resources such as land interact on a semi-free market. Which is exactly why lots of countries are now having problems with investors, foreign or not, buying up everything and driving up prices.
Most countries hurt because investors avoid them.
> buying up
Meaning tons of money and investment is flowing into the country.
No limit has been found, and certainly there's none in sight. Previous things running out:
1. rand out of wood for fuel. Now we use other fuels.
2. ran out of whales for whale oil. Now using other fuels.
3. Germany ran out of oil in WW2. They switched to alcohol and were developing other synthetic fuels.
4. The US ran out of rubber in WW2, developed synthetic rubber.
5. Ran out of farmland. Now use much more productive farming techniques. Vertical hydroponic farms are an emerging technology.
And so on. Interestingly, the countries that fail to adapt to change are socialist ones. The free market countries adapt.
The sky is the limit. Or is it? When prices rise high enough everything gets possible.
Are you seriously concerned about running out of places to put a 10 story building? People will just start making 20 story buildings.
Sure you can. Other planets, moons, habitats... It's just expensive. And the prices are not nearly high enough to justify the investments.
Sounds pretty much like the housing market where I live.
Land is inherently limited, and becomes more limited the higher the population concentration. Eventually this can lead to things like AirBnB and other rent seeking behaviors in the absence of government intervention leading to gentrification.
You're suggesting the government is anti-ethical to the free market. On the contrary, the government is required for a free market. The role of government is protection of property rights and contract enforcement.
> Land is inherently limited
Land use, however, is not limited. For example, building a 10 story building increases the amount of usable "land" by a factor of 10.
This seems like an arbitrary cut-off point. How do we know that if the game were to continue the result wouldn’t end up being the same, with one player still controlling a monopoly of all the properties?
"Travelling around America in the 1870s, George had witnessed persistent destitution amid growing wealth, and he believed it was largely the inequity of land ownership that bound these two forces – poverty and progress – together. So instead of following Twain by encouraging his fellow citizens to buy land, he called on the state to tax it. On what grounds? Because much of land’s value comes not from what is built on the plot but from nature’s gift of water or minerals that might lie beneath its surface, or from the communally created value of its surroundings: nearby roads and railways; a thriving economy, a safe neighbourhood; good local schools and hospitals. And he argued that the tax receipts should be invested on behalf of all.
Determined to prove the merit of George’s proposal, Magie invented and in 1904 patented what she called the Landlord’s Game. Laid out on the board as a circuit (which was a novelty at the time), it was populated with streets and landmarks for sale. The key innovation of her game, however, lay in the two sets of rules that she wrote for playing it.
Under the ‘Prosperity’ set of rules, every player gained each time someone acquired a new property (designed to reflect George’s policy of taxing the value of land), and the game was won (by all!) when the player who had started out with the least money had doubled it. Under the ‘Monopolist’ set of rules, in contrast, players got ahead by acquiring properties and collecting rent from all those who were unfortunate enough to land there – and whoever managed to bankrupt the rest emerged as the sole winner (sound a little familiar?)"