Friday, November 6, 2009
Industrial Rev Activity
I personally thought that the activity was not well done and poorly organized. The main problem I had with the activity was that someone could go to the beach for one star of luxury for only a dollar but they could go the opera for 30 dollars and only get 3 luxury stars. This messed up the whole activity by the end because everyone ended up with like 20 luxury stars because they spent all their money on walks to the beach. Also another problem was that the citizens had no idea how much money their wages should be and so the owners could charge us for really low wages and they would profit a lot of money and we would have no money for use to spend. I guess that send us the right message about the corrupt owners but I still had a problem with the pricings so if this was changed then the activity would be beneficial and helpful.
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Carson, I agree with you. The distribution of luxury goods was horrible, for you could get many more luxury stars if you simply didn't waste you money on the more expensive items. Yes, we had a good understanding of how hard it was to get a job, but the overall organization was poorly done.
ReplyDeleteObviously the game was poorly designed. But despite its obvious flaws, I still think it helped teach us a few key things about life in the 1800s? I think the answer is yes. For one thing, the game helped us understand how much of a burden children could be. Unless kids were helping the family earn money by working at factories, they would often end up causing a family to go into debt. Also, the game helped us realize how difficult it is to live on the wages that the factory owners were giving their employees. At the end of the game, most people didn't have very much money, but the factory owners had hundreds and thousands of dollars.
ReplyDeleteLastly, Marjory made a good point when she said that we should organize into a union. This put pressure on the employers, resulting in an increase in wages. When the laborers realized how much power they had when unified, wealth was distributed more fairly, and life got better for the lower class.
If we look at the game from the perspective of 'what did we learn?', instead of 'was it a well designed game?', then I think its easier to see how beneficial it was.
Thanks for your comments about the design of the game. Some things were on purpose -- the point about luxury points being un-equal to the monetary value of the items is actually on purpose -- it is to show that some luxuries are more "worthwhile" in the Industrial system. Beach-side amusement parks did provide a cheap, fun way of enjoying oneself, for perhaps the same "enjoyment value" as going to the opera, or horse-riding in the countryside, but for far cheaper expense. The point of the luxury points is to measure the happiness of the workers. After all, if you are too unhappy, you would rebel.
ReplyDeleteThe absolute fluidity of the wages is also on purpose. Each of the workers knew how much they needed to survive, but rest of it is a bargain with the Industrialists. That is the key point of contention between Industrialists and Laborers, and there was always someone willing to work for less, until labor unions.
That is one of the things that I liked about it was that when Marjory tried to form a "strike" and try and get higher wages, there were people like Chris who would settle for less money. It gave me a sense of what it was like back then and how much harder it was for people to get the raise they needed to have a luxuoirios life, or even enough money to provide for their family. All it took as that one person to undermine the whole process of higher wages and everything would fall apart.
ReplyDeleteI think it took more than one person to undermine the process of higher wages. Even if Chris had refused to join our union (which would have been a stupid decision for him, since unions generally give workers higher wages, more rights, and fairer treatment), it still could have been successful since more than one person is needed to work at the factories.
ReplyDelete