wormwood
It's revolutionary Monopoly! Sieze the time!
rob bier
(TAMES ARE big today. Perhaps now, as never be-
fore, people .are playing games, inventing games and
making money off them. There are the prestige "book-
shelf" games put out by 3-M and NBC's Hasbro sub-
sidiary. Social awareness "games," such as Smog, Dirty
Water and Blacks and Whites are making news. Games
People Play was 'a popular book a few years back and
has now become a game itself. There are even new
disciplines in the social sciences under the heading of
"games theory."
But in spite of the massiv6 proliferation of psychedylic
boards with clever rules, one venerable board game still
stands head and shoulders above the crowd, both in
sales and popularity - Monopoly.
However, in its nearly 40 years of existence, the rules
of Monopoly have not changed. When Parker Brothers
first put it on the market, most Americans were learning
for the first time, from the Depression, how big business
influenced their lives, and the rules were kept simple.
Today, on the other hand, people in virtually all walks
of life have an increased awareness' of our economic
system and how it functions. Monopoly, like our other
institutions, should keep up with the times. To that end,
then, I would like to propose some additional rules.
** *
CORPORATE CHICANERY RULE - Although mono-
polies are officially outlawed, businessmen have found
diverse and subtle methods of circumventing the law.
Under the old rules, however, Monopoly players are left
only with blatantly illegal or unprofitable options. This
rule allows players to incorporate their holdings.
For instance, if Karl holds two of one color and Fried-
rich the other, they may combine their holdings, either
overtly or covertly, to form a Corporation. Cash may or
may not be part of the deal, and rents are divided ac-
cording to the share of real property each owns in the
corporation. No property can be sold or mortgaged with-
out consent of the partner who holds the controlling in-
terest. All house and hotel building is also a joint venture.
Shares may be bartered for cash, although nominal own-
ership may still rest with the original owner.
Obviously, this set-up calls for some very difficult
decisions. Friedrich would have to determine, based on
both the real and potential value of his current holdings,
whether incorporation with Karl will be of sufficient
benefit to make success possible, or whether the benefits
accruing to Karl would be too great, thus jeopardizing his
own set-up.
SEIZE THE TIME RULE - In these days, it is
absurd to ignore the revolutionary 'potentials of situa-
tions which sometimes arise in the course of playing
Monopoly. Rules dealing with such situations are also
necessary so that your revolutionary friends will not
feel self-conscious when asked to join you in a game.
When a simple majority of the players hold less than
50 per cent of the total real value of all property and
cash in a situation of full ownership of all property. a
Revolutionary Situation exists. When that happens, two
things may occur: 1) The power elite can try to buy
off enough potential revolutionaries to swing the situa-
tion in their favor. No limits are placed on what means
may be used to convince the potential revolutionaries
that they would be better off under the present system.
2) If that fails, a Revolution occurs. The power elite is
wiped out, completely and a second pair of alternatives
present themselves: 1) The revolutionaries, having de-
cided that they have attained their goal, declare the
socialist state, put Monopoly back in the box and
go home. 2) The revolutionaries agree upon a method of
dividing up the elite's property (Warning: This may
take -several hours.) and continue to play the game.
This rule has a number of fascinating implications
which may not be readily apparent just from reading
it. Basic to its use is determining when a Revolutionary
Situation exists. Therefore, it is in the interest of the
richer players to conceal their actual wealth- by any
means possible (unmarked bank accounts in the refriger-
ator, for instance). It also behooves them to keep the
poor as poor as possible, hoping that, in their dejection,
they will not have the energy to try and determine
whether a Revolutionary Situation exists.
There is also the problem that even if some of the
players suspect there is a Revolutionary Situation, there
is no easy way to find out for sure,, short of physically
wrestling the very wealthy players to the floor while
someone adds up their assets. Being sure of the existence
of a Revolutionary Situation is important, since calling
one at the wrong time sends the Caller and, his support-
ers to'Jail for the rest of the game, while their property
and cash (including Get Out of Jail Free Cards, if any)
are pro-rated among the remaining players.
Another aspect worth noting is the result of choos-
ing Revolutionary Option Number Two. If the remaining
players can manage to agree, mutually or otherwise,
on some method of distributing the wealth, the game
continues as before. While some of the former revolu-
tionaries will become the new elite, with fewer players
a Revolutionary Situation becomes easier to spot, thus
reducing the stability of the new order,
Obviously, the greater the number and complexity of
the rules, the less likelihood there is that the game will
ever end. Even with the addition of just the above rules,
almost the only sure end to the game is Revolutionary
Option Number One. That is the rule where, having won
the Revolution, the revolutionaries declare the socialist
state, put the game in the box and go home.
4
ihe Mtic tau &4
Eighty years of editorial freedom
Edited and managed by students at the University of Michigan
why then this restlessness?
Walking the line-the strikers dig in
by sturtW gaiunes ...==
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, Mich.
News Phone: 764-0552
Editorials printed in The Michigan Daily express the individual opinions of staff writers
or the editors. This must be noted in all reprints.
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 1, 1970
NIGHT EDITOR: STEVE KOPPMv\AN
National Health Care:
How much will we do?
THE SENATE Labor and Public Welfare
Committee opened hearings last week
on a proposal which would establish a
comprehensive national health insurance
program.
Though it appears that no action will
be taken on the bill during this Congress,
the question of national health insur-
ance is likely to emerge as a key issue in
the next Congress.
Admirlistration spokesmen have al-
ready expressed their opposition. Under-
secretary of Health, Education and Wel-
fare Johri Veneman told the committee
the proposal was "horrendously costly"
and "alien to our basic traditions." Vice
President Agnew has attacked Michigan's
Sen. Phillip "Hart, one of the bill's orig-
inal sponsors, for "still trying to pile on
more spending that the country can't af-
ford."
The basic question seems fairly clear.
Should we attempt to guarantee decent
medical care to all Americans - or
should we accept as inevitable the con-
tinuation of the present system, w i t h
people of differing incomes being forced
to accept drastically different standards
of medical care? -
JF WE AGREE t h a t all people should
have an equal right to life and health,
then free medical care for all will be just
a start. The construction of medical fa-
cilities and the training of medical per-
sonnel should also reflect this view. The
Editorial Staff
MARTIN A. HIRSCHMAN, Editor
STUART GANNES JUDY SARASOHN
Editorial Director Managing Editor
NADINE COHODAS... ............Feature Editor
JIM NEUBACHER........ ..Editorial Page Editor
ROB BIER... ........Associate Managing Editor
LAURIE HARRIS ........ . Arts Editor
JUDY KAHN Personnel Director
DANIEL ZWERDLING . ............Magazine Editor
ROBERT CONROW........ . Books Editor
NIGHT EDITORS: Dave Chudwin, Erika Hoff, Steve
Koppman, Robert Kraftowitz, Lynn Weiner
EDITORIAL NIGHT EDITORS: Jim Beattie, Lindsay
Chaney, Steve Koppman, Pat Mahoney, Rick
Perloff
COPY EDITORS: Tammy Jacobs, Larry Lempert, Jim
McFerson, Hester Pulling, Carla Rapoport, Debbie
Thal. Harvard Valance.
ASSISTANT NIGHT EDITORS: Rose Berstein, Mike
Cleply, Mark Dilen, Sara Fitzgerald, Art Lerner,
Jonathan Miller, Hannah Morrison, M i c h a e l
Schneck, Bob Schreiner, W. E. Schrock, Edward
Zimmerman
Sports Staff
ERIC SIEGAL, Sports Editor
drastic difference in he.alth care between
some private hospitals and inner-city
public hospitals is intolerable.
Similarly intolerable is the training of
large numbers of highly paid specialists
catering to high-income groups while
low-income people may find it difficult
to receive the most minimal care.
E v e n for middle-income people, the
high cost of free-market medicine may
be a deterrent to receiving proper care -
and an unfortunate one whose cost in
life and health is inestimable. A nation-
al health insurance system would mean
provicing a total of more service, since
people will be less deterred from securing
care. It would mean a higher standard of
health for the country as a whole. It must
mean, thus, a greater proportion of our
national income spent on health.
Support for a national health plan has
grown in recent years. Even within the
medical profession, which has long ap-
peared hostile to public guidance, there
is growing support. A recent survey at
this University and at Harvard showed
/more t h a n two-thirds of medical stu-
dents supported national health insur-
ance. And a s t u d y of national health
plans long operative in Europe belies the
claims that a collapse of the doctor-pa-
tient relationship or national bankrupt-
cy must result from such systems.
THE PLAN currently being considered
in the Senate falls short of the ideal
in many ways. For one, it does not apply
to all medical expenses. Also, it is pro-
posed that the program be partly financ-
ed by a regressive payroll tax, similar to
Social Security.
But the plan is a start. Our present
health care system is one of our most
grotesque national scandals. This propos-
al would be a turn in the right direction.
As the wealthiest nation in the world,
the question is not what we can afford.
It is what we are willing to do. There are
few more important goals for us than the
provision of decent health care for all of
our people.
-STEVE KOPPMAN
The inside straight
BEFORE TAKING OFFICE as vice pres-
ident for student services, Prof. Rob-
ert Knuss saidhp wuildrsinaif nav o rf
WILLOW RUN
OUTSIDE THE GATES to the Chevy plant on Tyler Road, last
Thursday, the gusting wind whipped fine showers of dirt and soot
on the workers standing on the UAW picket line. Huge tractor-trailers
rumbled down the road every few minutes, their diesel engines spewing
smoke and drowning out conversation as they passed. Strike posters left
lying on the ground were scattered 'beyond the small groups of men
gathered around the gate.
The near-by factory-an empty parking lot away-stood idle. Only
the management offices remained occupied. But the glass and concrete
building stood seemingly under seige. Surrounded by late model cars,
and hidden behind white curtains, the Chevrolet management still
works during the strike. What they do is hard to say. From the line,
you only see men come and go to work or lunch. Office buildings are
not like factories; they stand silent. Only the flag high atop the com-
pany flagpole was restless; whipping, snapping and straining in the
fall winds.
BY THE SECOND WEEK of the UAW strike against General
Motors the daily patternfor the men on the picket line had been set.
Once a week for four hours a day, each worker comes to the gates
of the factory to stand picket duty.
The men stand around the gate sipping styrofoam cups filled with
coffee (which the union provides in a 10-gallon rented thermos). When
management, employes entering or leaving, the workers on the line
casually bantered with the men in their cars. A car drives up to the
gate and the workers say "Hi-ya punks" at the white-shirted men
inside. Then the electric window of the car smoothly lowers and a
smiling crew-cut voice blurts "Do ya want Pabst or Altes this time?"
Later, a typewriter repairman pulled up in a van and asked could
he cross the line. After a short confab, a worker yelled out to the driver:
"They don't need their typewriters fixed." "That's all I wanted to hear."
The repairman shot back as he popped the clutch of the van and
screeched away down Tyler Road.
However, when Cassady drove up in his new Gremlin (The Amer-
ican Motors' economy car) to stand on the lite from 10 until 2, small
groups of men wandered the few yards to where the car was parked
to admire and check-out the sleek white machine.
Cassady ordered the Gremlin before the strike started but he didn't
pick it up until after he was out of work. Men walked over, to the
resting automobile, examining its lines, engine and Interior; always
comparing it to GM's Chevy II which they assemble.
The men talk about the car in a way which only an autoworker
or a mechanic could understand. "People don't know cars like we do,"
Cassady drawled as he walked back to the gate to get a cup of coffee.
"We see things that the average man might miss."
TWO SECRETARIES DROVE UP to the line greeting the men with
smiles and cigaret smoke. Surprisingly the workers wouldn't let the car
through. -Why did they do that? "Probably just to watch them walk.
The blond's pretty good; she lives near me. Her father's from Ken-
tucky." Meanwhile the girls walked on, their hips swishing and swing-
ing toward the Chevy office.
A worker walked over and sat on the curb next to Cassady. "Whad
do ya think of the suspension on that Ford Camper over there?" "Looks
a little higher than the Chevy; I bet she would really be something all
filled-up and doin 70 on the highway." Company cars crossing the line
unsuspectingly went through their own inspection. One car was lousy,
another needed a valve job; "Look at the way she burns oil."
The men looked upwards as a small plane passed over the factory;
cutting through the grey sky. The plane struggled in the gusty wind:
"Look at that mother shake ... I'd sure hate to be up in this weather."
A Cadillac full of suited company men came back from lunch;
freshly lit cigars let fine blue wisps of smoke slip out the car's windows.
The smooth simonized body of the car slowed to a crawl to pass the
garbage cans around the picket line. Cassady tossed a stone into one
of the cans. "Wouldn't it be a shame if their car got scratched," he
muttered as the chrome and steel rolled by with its load.
Cassady would never own a car like that; the Gremlin is all he
needs. "I'm not that ambitious. We could have more; a lot of guys'
wives work. But you lose something along the way. All we need is a
place to live, something to eat and to stay clean."
But as the strike continues, Cassady's payments are building up.
He needs a job. This week he might try several places. "You can get a
job at any service station. One place needs a muffler .man but that's
a dirty job."
BEFORE THE STRIKE Cassady liked going to a drive-in movie on
weekends. He's even made movies himself in the past few years. "I have
a Kodak Super-8. I shoot a lot of with my kid . . You can create all
kinds of illusions and actions with movies if you watch carefully.
r
Letters to The Daily
4
Naivete
To the Daily:
J. YALE-ALLEN'S "An his-
toric precedent for university tur-
moil" (Daily, Sept. 26) is ironic in
two respects. The author is seem-
ingly trying to draw an analogy
between pre-1917 Russia and the
U.S. today as far as student move-
ments are concerned. Whet is
ironic is Allen's implication that
after 1917 students were somehow
better off. What incredible naivete.
After 1917 if a student were to
slap a student inspector that
would be his last deed as a mortal.
Any dissent in the good old peo-
ple's paradise has been and is re-
warded with jail terms, expulsion
from institutions of higher learn-
ing, and subsequent job ostracism.
THE OTHER POINT of irony in
Mr. Allen's article is the state-
ment: "Found guilty by associ-
ation, unable to travel abroad, and
discriminated against in employ-
ment, the red haired student was
to follow the only path open to
him: revolution." Here again we
have the old revolution myth.
Gentlemen, open your East Euro-
pean history books. Lenin and his
Bolsheviks did not pull off the
revolution, i.e. against the czarist
regime, instead it was liberals who
did it. The best Lenin and his
boys could do was to pull off a
coup d'etat on Kerensky after it
was all over.
-Bohdan Wytwycky
Sept. 26
not even receive money for nmime-
ographing or Xeroxing which we
must pay for out of our own
pockets.
COURSE MART courses are all
approved by the Curriculuna Com-
mittee of LS&A for reguldr aca-
demic credit. Consequently, this
program is a great bargain for the
University which receives hun-
dreds of student-credit hours
gratis-credit hours which would
ordinarily cost thousands of dol-
lars if they were taught in the
departments. We who are active
in these courses offer our services
because we feel that the subject
matter is important and ought to
be taught for credit even if we
are not paid. Nevertheless, we feel
that it is not right for these cour-
ses which have been. judged aca-
demically worthy to be denied
funds which all other accredited
courses receive. Sincerely,
-Andrea Solomon
Charles Cell,
John McConnell
Carl Goldberg
Organizing Committee for
College Course 324,
Military in Modern America
Sept. 23
In support
To the Daily:
AS MEMBERS of a Christian
student organization, we consider
it an obligation to foster :ind sup-
port those movements and organ-
izations that we feel witness to the
teachings of Jesus Christ. It 's our
grams is a far better and more ef-
fective means of alleviating social
ills than is the paternalistic char-_
ity ;that is so characteristic of
white America.
WE REALIZE that the task that
BEDL and WRO has set out to ac-
complish is one which will need
the support not only of churches
and social organizations, but also
of the local, state, and -federal
governments. The support of the
Newman Student Association will
not go far in realizing the aims of
BED4 - WRO, but we hope that
our contributions-financially, in
manpower, and in any other form
that may be of service--will serve
to elicit similar support from those
institutions a n d organizations
whose resources are greater than
our own.
-Newman Student Association
Steering Committee
Offensive ads
To the Daily:
ON TUESDAY, Sept. 22, you
ran an ad for the Grad Coffee
Hour which showed a Mexican
in a sombrero labeled "Manuel"
speaking to his "amigos." The ad
misspelled words like "theenk" in-
tending to represent the way Mex-
icans speak English. I found the
ad extremely 'offensive, as it
stereotyped Mexicans in the usual
way as being stupid and not able
to learn to speak English properly.
I am tired of seeing this stereo-
typing in the press and on T.V.
Perhaps when we all finally re-