Monopoly

This week in class, we played Monopoly; however, this was not regular Monopoly, it was Monopoly based off of Sal's rules. The game started the same, everyone each rolled the dice to see who would go first, second, third, etc. However, when you rolled the dice, you also found out what social class you were going to be put into for that game. There were five different classes as high as the upper class all the way down to the lower class and there were three classes in between. There were different rules depending on what class you were in also.

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For that game, I was placed into the Blue-Collar Working Class. Each class started with a different amount of money and each class earned a different amount of money every time they passed GO; the two highest classes even started with properties that they already owned before even rolling the dice. As the working class, I was given $667.00 to start off with. From then on, it was all a game of luck. For me, luck was not on my side because I lost money, fast. I only ended up buying two properties before I lost all of my money due to landing on many properties that were owned by other classes, including the most expensive property of them all, Boardwalk. After losing all my money, I was forced to go on Monopoly Welfare where I was only given $30.00 every time that I passed go. The good thing about this was that I didn't have to pay rent for any property that I landed on no matter who owned it; the rules stated that a player remained on welfare until they had either passed GO five times, reached a certain amount of money, or bought a property. I remained on Monopoly Welfare until the end of the game. At the end of the game, we added up all of our money, including the buying price of our properties, to see who had changed classes. Everyone had stayed the same. Even though I was on Monopoly Welfare, I ended up with over $400.00 since I had already had two properties. The rich stayed the richest.

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This game is all about Sociology because it discusses Social Class. It brings out both the benefits and the difficulties that different Socials Classes go through. This game uses a very small scale example of what different parts of the world are like and how those people in those different parts live. It many cases, the rich get richer and the poop get poorer. A lot of what determines this is what family someone is born into. However, if someone is born into a poor family, it is still possible for them to advance to upper class, it will just take a little longer and may require more work.