Part II: Potluck with the boys
I like playing games with kids that
emphasize two main points. The first point is that if you do good,
you will reap what you sow. Do what Jesus said: love your neighbor as
yourself, know good and do it, serve others, etc. The second point I
like to teach the kids is much more controversial. If the first point
is that good behavior has good rewards, the second is that bad
behavior has greater rewards.
Imagine your church has a potluck.
Somebody brings brings homemade lasagna and another a cobb salad and
anther a chocolate cake. You bring a dozen, prime, top choice steaks!
I bring nothing. You spend a hundred of dollars on steaks and another
hour preparing and grilling them. As you enter the line I am coming
back to the front to grab another paper plate because mine is folding
under the weight of you steak and the lasagna.
By the time you get through the line
you get a plateful of tuna casserole, brownie crumbles, and a pat on
the back from Reverend Lovejoy because you have learned that "Truly,
better ye that giveth than receiveth."
Let's say now that our imaginary church
potluck, and your steaks, were such a success that the Reverend
decided to do the same thing the whole rest of the month. This time
one person brings cocktail weenies, another brings fruit salad, and
you bring mini-hamburgers. Two other people, seeing that I got
through the line last time having not brought any food myself, decide
to join me and become the freeloaders and bring absolutely nothing.
We fleece your fruit, burgle your ham,
and polish off the polishes. You go through the line last and wind up
with a scoop of smashed bananas and half of an Oscar Meyer. You sit
down looking at your half-empty plate Reverend Lovejoy pulls up a
chair next to you, pats you on the back and says, "Blessed be ye
that hunger and thirstest for righteousness."
Imagine that by the third week of the
potluckathon the other families have caught on to my secret and
decide to bring nothing and only eat others' food. This time the only
person that brings anything is you and your deviled eggs. Being a
little wiser, you made extras and stashed them at home in the fridge
so you wouldn't be completely without. Reverend Lovejoy, instead of
patting you on the back, quietly nudges you and whispers, "Deviled
eggs isn't exactly subtle, is it?"
For the last week of the church
potluck, you are fed up with your freeloading brothers and sisters in
Christ and decided to not bring anything. To no one's surprise, no
food was brought at all and everybody goes home hungry. Reverend
Lovejoy is booed out of the pulpit after reminding the congregation
that man doesn't live on bread alone.
This imaginary potluck disaster is a
parallel to a game I played with the kids called the Public Goods
game. The game revolves much in the same way, except in our game
everyone started with an imaginary amount of money to contribute to
the common good. Much like people deciding what to bring to a
potluck, each player is player is left with a decision to make on how
much to contribute to the our money pool. The monies in the pool were
then distributed equally among all the players.
Each player started with "100"
dollars. They were told that we were playing five rounds and each kid
was told to secretly write down his contribution on a scrap of paper
and pass it to me. Most kids donated around 15-20 (that would be
those that brought tuna casserole and lasagna), one donated half his
money (you and your steaks), and I donated zero, just like in the
potluck. The money was returned equally to all the players, and about
half found they were left with less money than when they started.
Those who gave abundantly to the pool fund (potluck) were left with
little in return comparatively. Those who gave nothing (me) after the
money was given back had the highest total of everybody.
The second round of the game, about
half of the people, seeing that I had attained the most money by
nature of not giving any away, decided to join me in being Scrooges.
The rest of the people that gave contributed significantly less to
the potluck, noting that most had less money to draw from after the
first round. After monies were pooled and divided out amongst
everybody, by this point everybody noticed that I still had the most
money and—equally important for our observations—those who gave
the most were left with the least in their proverbial pocket.
The third round of the game, only one
person contributed to the potluck. Nobody gave anything. In his
defense, the one player that gave, out of the ten boys I played with,
was by far the youngest and a little slow to pick up the object. At
this point, they noticed that by only one person donating to the
communal fund, there was little left when divided among all the
players. At the next round, number four, the game essentially ended
as all the players refused to contribute.
The Public Goods game is very limited
in its scope. It is meant to simulate a real world example of people
contributing towards a public good (a community park, taxes to fund a
municipal bus system, a public school levy, war bonds, etc). The
contributions by everyone differ, but everyone receives the same
compensation as the money is divided equally amongst all players. The
game is extremely capitalist and anti-socialist in nature—this is
true of most Western economic games because these games reduce
complex economies down to singular principles, often with of absurd
results.
As the game ended everyone looked at
their balance sheet. Having started all with the same $100, some were
now at 60, most were around 90 or 100, some a little higher, and I
had the most by far having not contributed ever and only receiving
the same equal portion. The ten boys I was playing with all cried
foul and started saying how wrong it was that I should win with the
most money when I never contributed a cent the whole game. I rigged
the game and it wasn't fair.
What I found odd was that I never told
them the object of the game was to have the most money...
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