Monopoly

This week in class we took a further look into the class system in American society. Specifically we looked at how difficult it is to move up in economic class and how people are usually stuck in the class they were born into. To do this we played the classic board game "Monopoly" but with a slight deviation in the rules. We had everyone divided into 5 economic levels: upper-higher class, lower-higher class, upper-middle class, lower-middle class, and working class. I ended up rolling a low number to begin with so I was stuck with lower-middle class. Even before the game began just looking at the rules I knew it would be impossible to make a decent amount of money from the lower classes point of view, and I was right. When the game ended I had barely made any money (maybe a hundred dollars more than I had started with) we thought the other lower-middle class person had made it big but it turns out it was just a blatant miscalculation. I enjoyed this lesson it was a good microcosm for the real world and a fun and intuitive way to teach it. Though, once again I ask, what can we do? I mean like I mentioned in previous blog posts we live in a nation with a capitalist economy. Its not like we will change it and we shouldn't. The system does seem to favor those who are born into riches but, it wouldn't be fair to just redistribute the wealth. That being said I do agree with the notion of the lesson, that we should appreciate more of what we do actually have and not focus on what we don't have.