Marxist Economy Game

Material Requirements:
Approx 100 cubes
Bag of Jellybeans
Activity:
Arrange the room so that participants have a fairly large area to play the game.
Have participants stand or sit in a circle and scatter the cubes evenly in the middle
of the circle.
Explain to participants that in this activity they will distribute the capital (wealth) of
the country among themselves. This wealth is represented by the 1 cubes. There is
only one rule! no participant may touch another member of the group at any time.
Tell them that those who gather the most cubes receive that many "elly beans.
1. At the orer of !"# have participants gather as many pennies as possible $ithout
touching one another. %ote: &enalties for violations of this rule may be neee#
such as removal from the game or payment to the person touche.
'. After all the cubes have been collecte# have participants report their $ealth to the
class. Recor participants( names an number of cubes on a boar or chart paper.
)entify * players $ho i not o $ell an han them the revolution cars.
+xplain to the $hole class that this moels a capitalist economy# $here some
people o better than others.
*. ,ave stuents play the game again. At the same time# tell all stuents $ho
receive revolution cars to stan asie an rea their cars quietly $ith each
other $hile the game goes on.
-. .his time# after all the cubes have been collecte# have participants line up to
trae their cubes for /elly beans# $ith those $ith the most at the front.
0. .he three stuents $ith the revolution cars $ill announce a revolution an that
they are sei1ing the capital 2cubes3 an reistributing it equally to the proletariat.
4. ,ave the revolutionaries sei1e the cubes from the top 4 players# then reistribute it
to all other players so that most players have roughly the same amount of cubes.
2for a class of *0 *50 cubes each3.
6. +xplain that this is an example of ho$ communism $or7s# $ith %ationali1ation
of companies follo$e by communism or socialism to sprea $ealth an
resources evenly among all people.
8. !ive all members of the class * /ellybeans.