Comments on: Arthurdale as a Board Game for FDR’s Players

By: Josh

Josh — Thu, 12 May 2011 12:31:12 +0000

I think it is disingenuous to say “No longer would the political elite merely protect the sanctity of liberty by upholding the rule of law; a new purpose had arisen — to improve their fellow citizens.” An inquiry into the historical era shows that for some time, political favors were bought and sold as if they were commodities on the open market. The political elite was less concerned with liberty, and more concerned with their financial safety.
Rockefeller, Vanderbelt, Stanford, and the like, while able talented innovative and men of genius, were not above purchasing political power to have their way. Often, such activity was at the detriment of the laborer, who had the least amount of political influence during the times. I think that is why there was such a strong progressive movement that began in the late 1800′s, and reappeared during depression times. Of course, that does not take into account other influences such as the causes of the depression itself, etc.

By: Freedom Fighter

Freedom Fighter — Wed, 11 May 2011 22:12:50 +0000

Zoning has brought catastrophe to civilization.
It has forced people to commute, spend gas, buy cars, car repairs, lose time in traffic.
It has destroyed the sense of belonging to a community, now even in your own residential zone you don’t even know your neighbor next door.
Zoning has created a society of strangers where you constantly deal with complete strangers in monstrous sized buildings. The mall is huge, wal-mart is huge. Chances are you work in a huge plant with lots of strangers etc.

This is just not natural.

Now, it’s not only zoning but also energy standards, product standards like low flush toilets, low flush showers, like phosphate free laundry and soon we are going to be mandated to buy mercury ridden twisted lamps.

This is insane, we are being managed and micromanaged top down with no freedom at the bottom and no sense of community etc.

By: Freedom Fighter

Freedom Fighter — Wed, 11 May 2011 22:07:53 +0000

““What you are doing is an experiment, and it isn’t right to experiment on people.””

What God is doing is an experiment, and it isn’t right to experiment on the soul.

By: BioTube

BioTube — Wed, 11 May 2011 17:58:08 +0000

Reminds me of Jumanji(the actual board game has everybody lose when 6 disaster cards are pulled into play).

By: Tony Fernandez

Tony Fernandez — Wed, 11 May 2011 17:37:57 +0000

Only because zoning laws were upheld by the Supreme Court in a completely nonsensical decision in Euclid v. Ambler. How in the world do you consider zoning a police activity?

By: Dave Albin

Dave Albin — Wed, 11 May 2011 16:58:16 +0000

What’s a little scary is that every community has different degrees of planning built into them.

By: Tony Fernandez

Tony Fernandez — Wed, 11 May 2011 16:54:15 +0000

This experiment still goes on. Planned communities pop up everywhere and are inevitably failures. Jane Jacobs talked a lot about this, and it should come as no surprise to Austrians that these experiments showed the failure of top-heavy state apparatus.

By: Thomas Egebak

Thomas Egebak — Wed, 11 May 2011 14:16:08 +0000

It could actually be fun if Mises made a boardgame with an educational value. The players could be different group battling and negotiating in Congress and with every act they would harm the society with the continual , and increasing, risk of actually causing a meltdown. Anyways, just a stray thought.