College of Business Administration

Seminar in Business Ethics and Social Institutions

Commons Game Feedback:

Been thinking about possible solutions for the commons game...
The first I thought of in class. We could have made a jail out of tables and put those who deviated inside. It's simplistic and has many cousin solutions that could solve the commons game (like the forced show of cards, how left for B-school) but not what the game represents.
The second solution, geez. Over here (arguably better than over there,) we deify our greediest, so we could ALL be winners by using our superpower status to keep ourselves technologically ahead of the pack, begin the next century's move towards knowledge rather than manual work by outsourcing everything toxic and/or low paying to the third world, and using lawyers to eliminate even the notion of personal responsibility from our lives. Oh wait.
Cards #7 & #10 were our greedy, and hence our villians since the commons game at least resembled a 0-sum environment. Since we're off the gold standard though, its at least arguable that some of the B$80 that Bill Gates has accumulated was truly newly created wealth. Is this a good enough rationalization for being angry at our selfish locally, but worshipping them when they acheive big-fish status? I guess my point is that trying to get a whole roomfull of business students to not get greedy...is damn unlikely. Goes against our nature as business leaders in training. I bet the e-MBA's are awful.
Of course, old Russia bears some resemblance to a commons game set up by people hell-bent on sharing, and we know how that turned out. Maybe the point is that we humans are a strange and doomed breed, because we would never allow, let alone admit, that an equitable solution to our global commons game could exist.
There are a LOT of poor people out there, eventually they might figure out the rules. In time, some will have enough money to buy at least one product, at which point they will be well served by filing product liability lawsuits. So we could eliminate the poor, or we could eliminate our lawyers. Hmmm... we need the poor for all the labor, but what the !@#$% do lawyers do? There's solution #2 : Get rid of the lawyers.
Happy weekend, Rob Good

Unfortunately, I think the only way to solve the problem is through government regulation. However, I think it is difficult to find the right amount of regulation. We need only enough regulation to ensure the survival of our natural resources. We must be careful not to over regulate. We don't want to turn into a Socialist society instead of a Capitalist society.
Diana Foster

It was interesting to see how fast the cohesiveness of the group degenerated after one member chose to exercise their option of maximizing their withdrawal on the first round of the game.
A set of rules and regulations promulgated by the goup regarding withdrawals at a rate that allows for continued maximized resource renewal would be one way to ensure a small, steady, and equal supply for each member. These rules and regulations would only work if all members agreed, in advance, to abide by them. A penalty, such as expulsion, could be used as a deterrent to greed.
The Socialist option: The resource could be allocated by a manager, appointed by the group. The Manager would be responsible for allocating the resource equally among all members at a rate which would continue to allow for optimal renewal.
Kathleen Bute

My quick $.02 on improving the outcome of our Commons Game:
Regulation would have benefited the game a great deal. If there was a knowledgeable person(s) among us able to make sense of the non-linear rate at which the 'widgets' (re)generated, perhaps we could have agreed to some upper and lower limits for taking and returning the resources. This may have resulted in more success (at least where success is defined by equal gain of the common rather than particular individuals).
Jim McAllister

Two options that I thought of for changing the outcome of the game:
1. Collect all of the game cards and have one person fill them all out - fairly regulated, though.
2. Rather than encouraging all participants to choose conservatively, encourage everyone to choose the maximum (or close to it) in the first round - so that they could see the effects of a quick depletion of the resources. Looking back, it seemed that the majority of the participants chose small amounts to withdraw, not because they saw the negative implications of selecting a large number, but because they wanted the approval of the group.
As the rounds passed, it then appeared that people still wanted to keep their numbers small, but they started to look out for their own interests - choosing the minimum + one or two.
Interesting exercise.
Michael Kudrac

"How would I play the game better?" I don't think this question can be answered without a clear goal. Was the goal to end up with the highest number for yourself, highest number for the team, to get to an exact number for yourself or the team, or just communicate within a group making us all winners? A different strategy would be used each time in an unlimited goal potential game.
Chris Fassari

I ended up with a total of 33 at the end of the game, and in regards to my individual performance, I would not have changed a thing. I went along with the group on the first round, and decided that no matter how hard we tried there would never be a consistent group consensus on how to fairly allocate the resource. As a result, I took a reasonable amount of the resource each round to ensure that I would not be a victim at the end of the game without taking (what I thought was) more than my share.
Erik Miller

Here is my take on the game.
It was interesting that in a game with no rules, except the agreed upon survival, the first round take was a standard value. Even then, one deviated from the norm and took the maximum. After pleading with others to reach a goal that would benefit the group, people continued to make individual decisions. Beyond survival, few took the initiative to hog the resources at the expense of the others.
It my say that in general, most people will follow what others before have done and slowly deplete the resources, but few will go the extra step and return back on a regular basis.
Jeff Stewart

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