Asshole Capitalism & the Case for Impact Monopoly
Wow. Reading the research on the real genesis of Monopoly, and the surprising finding that it was designed originally to teach the “99% about income inequality” is fascinating to me, especially as I write this at the so-called ‘giving’ time of year. I like games that teach. I’ve made a few myself. And I meditate a lot on capitalism. I think it is an incredible system for a lot of reasons. But unbridled it seems far from complete.
Despite my better angels, I reluctantly admire those expert practitioners of capitalism who have mastered what they humorously refer to as “being assholes”. Routinely people celebrate this perspective in “Silicon Valley” the TV series where they literally exhort (and we cheer for) the transformation of our inventor protagonist into an “asshole”, making light of a nasty state in which he is optimized for success. Movies like “The Social Network”, “Wall Street” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” all do it. They laugh along or they glamorize ripping each other off. Where media doesn’t convince us, the dream of being rich does. I hate to say it, but it’s the rare person among us who doesn’t have a price.
I often look at the cooperative model and how we began Bitcasters, our first company as a pseudo-coop. I consider how little financial worth we kept for ourselves and that is left twenty years later from a venture that employed dozens and dozens of people for decades. I think about how we mustn't have done our job right. We didn't play the system right, we didn't act enough like capitalists, we never mastered being “assholes”, we made art as well as business, we paid our debts and supported the creative experiments of our team. Sure some employees probably felt we were assholes despite all of this effort to be “nice”. Same as it ever was. Besides, employees rarely have even a vague understanding of what entrepreneurs sacrifice to create jobs and income for the group. Perhaps it’s not the employee’s role to even try and empathize with the boss. However, if an employee’s job isn't to appreciate the boss, is it really the boss’s job to be “nice”?
Now I am advising start-ups all the time and the truth is that if you want to succeed in Silicon Valley, there is a culture of expecting a certain amount of “asshole” in the equation or someone else will simply take your share. Another way to put this is “look out for number one, if you don’t, no one else will”, “survival of the fittest”, or “law of the jungle”. In the valley, no one is more revered than Steve Jobs. In his success he seemed to prove to us all that not giving shares to some of his engineers (nastily withholding them) was the right business decision. Shows like “Silicon Valley” parody this bitter reality, but it all ends up seeming correct.
So I have thought many times about games like Monopoly that I wish I had played more aggressively, or the poker group I belonged to in NYC where I wish I had embraced the game and the spirit of winning-by-beating-someone so much more. I could have picked up this winning gene. I could have had more. I could have done more. Clearly I didn't play enough Monopoly. I mean I started a company as a coop!
So it comes as a surprise that Monopoly was really a serious game meant to teach about income inequality. Was I learning the right lesson this whole time? I like games as a way to help us think about life. Unlike my more successful business friends I’ve never been the poker shark who would do anything to get the chips. In fact, sometimes I gave mine away to sit back and simply enjoy the company of my friends while they played. I’ve been teased and felt embarrassed about that, but in the end, I wanted the process to be as meaningful as the result. I’m guessing my colleagues probably do too, but they seem to see through a different lens and I hope they will share with me what that looks like, because I’d like to reconcile the two ideas.
I ponder at Christmas time, here in my family home in Victoria, B.C., what might be my ideal cultural model for success. I don’t think it’s to do whatever it takes to become rich so you can give it back. So what is an alternative to a system predicated on this false dichotomy of entrepreneur who is “asshole-until-rich” and then eventually becomes “philanthropist-we-love”? Don’t get me wrong, I think some of the most incredible work is possible due to capitalism and free market competition and I deeply admire the billionaires who have signed the “Giving Pledge” and who have committed to giving the vast majority of their wealth away before they die. This is a profound movement that if it continues to spread voluntarily could perhaps help correct for some of capitalism’s flaws, such as hoarding and the culturally prevalent phenomenon of financial inheritances that pass down to people who are not creating value for society. Why not improve the system? It’s brilliant but I don’t think it’s finished.
I am sure many of you are thinking as you read this of people that have lived and demonstrated a viable path with wonderful balance. I ask you to share these examples here. For 2015 I am hoping to see more of these folks on magazine covers. Instead of idolizing the asshole, let’s seek out the heroes whose success in capitalism simultaneously bears positive social fruit. The ones who seek to impact the world but start in their home, their offices and in their communities. Capitalists who give as they go, through fairness, sharing and cooperation as well as competition. Capitalists who create more than they hoard. This isn’t soft, this is true strength. These leaders are the ones we should really set our sights by.
I am excited in 2015 to spend my time with entrepreneurs and capitalists whose very business ideas are predicated on having a positive social impact. I look forward to being a part of these journeys and contributing to the process as well as the results.
Looking back at the Monopoly board, I am left to wonder — what if it said “Clean Ocean” or “Eradicate Disease”, instead of “Park Place” or “Mayfair”. What if these locations were something you created instead of owned? What if Jail was where you went for stealing or cheating instead of for the random flip of a card. What if this game dealt with important concepts but didn’t devolve into a one-dimensional rah-rah pseudo-hippy bore (I say that with love fellow Sundance alum, Web of Changers and Burning Man, etc. friends). What if it was still funny and fun and you could make obscene amounts of money? But what if you could only get rich by inventing things that made all the other players better off? And what if passing Go meant giving back?
Now we know the true inventor and her intended purpose for the original Monopoly. Maybe it’s time to revisit how the game is played.
Best wishes to all my fellow entrepreneurs, may 2015 be a year of abundance!
