Why do people, when playing CEOs, become tyrants from central casting?

June 1, 2015 2:49 PM

How to turn a liberal hipster into a capitalist tyrant in one evening

The classic problem presented by the game is one all managers face: short-term issues, usually involving cashflow, versus the long-term challenge of nurturing your workforce and your client base. Despite the fact that a public-address system was blaring out, in English and Chinese, that “your workforce is your vital asset” our assembled young professionals repeatedly had to be cajoled not to treat them like dirt.

posted by frimble (32 comments total)

In this context, WTF is a "liberal hipster"? Why not just say "theater attendees in London" or something? The use of shorthand here kind of lessens the actual credibility of the "study" or whatever you want to call it.
posted by Nevin at 2:54 PM on June 1, 2015 [7 favorites]

How to turn brilliant insightful articles into clickbait headlines in one weird trick?

(A: subject them to the laws of PPV advertising)
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:57 PM on June 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

If the starting premise is that you own a sweatshop, doesn't that pretty much assume amoral/immoral behavior from the get go?
posted by TedW at 2:57 PM on June 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

But that doesn't the fact that this is a fascinating & interesting article. I want to play that game so badly.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 2:57 PM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

How to turn ordinary people into murderers in one evening
posted by betweenthebars at 3:05 PM on June 1, 2015 [12 favorites]

Everyone behind this seems confused about just what it's shining light on. Does it show that "liberal hipsters" are incipient rapacious robber barons? Even if that's already true, you wouldn't be able to deduce that from this play, since part of the conceit of roleplaying is that you're stepping outside of yourself and taking on a different personality and with it, probably, a different ethical calculus entirely, all in an imaginary and therefore consequence-free environment. You could maybe argue that it reveals the shape of our popular conception of the CEO and all that entails, but that's pretty difficult to separate from the incentives the game provides, since people are going to try to maximize the numbers you tell them are good, whatever the precise nature of the scenario. I can't for the life of me see what's surprising or insightful about this.
posted by invitapriore at 3:13 PM on June 1, 2015 [14 favorites]

Very interesting experiment and article. It sounds like the play presented stark choices where it's rather obvious that you're choosing ethical failure vs. unethical success - that's the difficult conundrum the play wanted to present its audience with, and it succeeds in leaving its audience uncomfortable, shaken, and pondering lots of things. So, great. I'd love to take part in that! But is that stark moral choice really how things work? It really does seem like, now more than ever, ethical business is good long-term business. Customers are increasingly very conscious about where goods come from, and make choices in their life to buy local, buy ethical, and buy small when they can. This is part of the so-called "hipster" epithet, but hipster is just codeword for young, urban, and either mainstream or about to go mainstream, and this sort of consideration is increasingly prevalent. This is how you succeed these days as a small entrepeneur with dreams of having a reputable, well-loved business. In addition, happy workers are good, loyal workers. Treat them like dirt and you will experience blowback. I don't think the stark choice of morality vs. success really maps to real world scenarios in a world where everyone - customers, workers, the press - are aware like never before.
posted by naju at 3:18 PM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

The aggregated flowchart reveals that every audience, on every night, veers towards money and away from ethics.

That's not a binary choice, though. So, I think the "game" is likely tailored to specifically make a hammer-handed, bullshit point, because capitalism is bad, mmm-kay?
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:48 PM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]

My view of morality in capitalism has always been that I will usually do what is advantageous to me, while working as a citizen to better align my sense of morals with regulation, so that what is immoral is also unprofitable. This experiment just demonstrates the importance of regulatory frameworks for protecting ordinary workers, and I'm not conflicted about it at all. Are there really a lot of "liberal hipsters" out there who think the sweatshop owners are the problem?
posted by chrchr at 4:06 PM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

Even if we accept the results of the game at face value, it's just telling us that anyone put into the position of CEO will do what the the incentives tell them to do even if it runs counter to their own ethics. So, we need a solid regulatory scheme to provide counter-incentives as a check against them. So if the message they're trying to send is, "Regulation is important because people will do unethical things if they're the CEO." well, we already know that and I don't think this is the first time it's been studied.

But there are RPG video games where the incentives aren't really any different between two opposing moral choices (I'm thinking Specifically of Knights of the Old Republic here but there are a bunch of others) and plenty of people with good morals still choose the dark-side/evil path because they're playing a game where those choices don't have real-world consequences. When the game specifically so that you "win" by making the unethical choice, of course people are going to try to win.

This could also be a rip-off of Ender's Game. They tell people that this is a game and put them in increasingly difficult CEO/management situations until they're put in charge of a company where the goal is to buy all the other companies. They won't find out that it was real until after they've won.
posted by VTX at 4:13 PM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]

So they made a game, with rules and a win condition. Then people played the game and optimized their choices to achieve the win condition. Congrats guys, you discovered gaming, come to our board game nights and witness how we turn into war lords, rail barons, and ruthless kings.
posted by MrBobaFett at 4:16 PM on June 1, 2015 [31 favorites]

Yeah, the problem here is that they know it's just a game. Lots of people will behave like evil CEOs if they know they aren't hurting real people— it makes the theatre more dramatic and drama is what you want out of theatre.

So, while I'm sure that the real world situation of being in capitalism at the top makes people less ethical in real life, this is not a good way of demonstrating it.

Which would you rather read, a murder mystery or the story of someone who always does the right thing and gets rewarded for it?
posted by Maias at 4:17 PM on June 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

Now that I think about this more, there's already a game about capitalism, one that literally everyone has played, that shows that people will do bad things to each other if given the chance.

This game is called "Monopoly."

I mean, someone lands on your property and can't afford the rent. I missed the part in the rules printed inside the box where they tell you to first contact a tenant's rights agency before you take your little brother's stuff and make him cry. Fucking hell, Chad. It's just a game. Little punk.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 4:17 PM on June 1, 2015 [17 favorites]

It definitely sounds like an interesting way to spend an evening, and I'd love to go along. But, yes, this writeup makes the assumption that the people playing the game can't tell the difference between games and reality. I've used beloved pets as skeleton warrior bait, lifted wallets, lain waste to entire cities, lied and defreauded, and set deadly traps in games. All with a clear conscience. Because I'm an amoral monster?* Or because I know that the dead and suffering entities I left in my wake aren't real? In games I don't hesitate to be a monster, because completing the game demands it or because I think it'll be interesting to see where the story goes. In real life I carry insects out of the house rather than squash them.

In games, you define the goals, rules, and resources, and the players play within that framework. If the (completely imaginary) happiness of (completely imaginary) people isn't one of the parameters of the game that the game-makers have told them to care about, why should they? They're not people to worry about, they're counters in an abstract possibility space that they players are trying to explore.

This pattern of assuming that other people can't tell the difference between stories and reality is weirdly common.**I can't tell if it's arrogance or a lack of empathy, but the idea that "we can see that it's not real, but obviously they are completely buying into it and reacting as if it were" keeps cropping up. Often in the context of crappy "social experiments" or games like this one, set to elicit a specific bad behaviour from a specific group, to be held up as evidence. There are definite echoes of "If we assume this group is bad and not too bright, then their responses obviously mean [x], which is evidence that they're bad and not too bright", which is depressingly common in in-group conversations all over the political and social spectra.

*In fairness, if I were I might not know.
**I am specifically not talking about gamergate, just to be clear. I agree that problematic representations of women and minorities in games don't have to be directly believed by the players to reinforce a toxic culture, or to make gaming a miserable experience for people who see themselves represented in shitty characterisations.
posted by metaBugs at 4:23 PM on June 1, 2015 [6 favorites]

There is no morality in capitalism, that's not capitalisms job. That's why if you want anything like morality it must be imposed from outside.
posted by Artw at 4:34 PM on June 1, 2015 [5 favorites]

Actually, the claim of "neoliberal capitalism" is that the competing amoral entities somehow balance each other out to create a system that's good for everybody. And if you believe that, I have some magic beanstalk seeds to sell you. (The people involved don't even believe it themselves but they use it as a tool to eliminate their guilt, like Religion)
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:43 PM on June 1, 2015 [4 favorites]

Well, yes, I think you've said all that needs to be said about that pile of bollocks.
posted by Artw at 5:43 PM on June 1, 2015

Buh-buh-buh I thought everyone's interests averaged out to "good." Like Hitlers and Mother Teresas mixed in with average Joes = moral happy world. All of the individuals along the way suffering 99% of the time average out with people with rockin' lives to also have a good time on Planet Durf.

What
posted by aydeejones at 5:55 PM on June 1, 2015

It doesn't surprise me that once wages are cut, they somehow never manage to raise them again. Just like most jobs in America too these days.

This whole thing reminds me of "absolute power corrupts absolutely." Or how even a tiny taste of power does the same.
posted by jenfullmoon at 7:08 PM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

You could maybe argue that it reveals the shape of our popular conception of the CEO and all that entails, but that's pretty difficult to separate from the incentives the game provides, since people are going to try to maximize the numbers you tell them are good, whatever the precise nature of the scenario. I can't for the life of me see what's surprising or insightful about this.

Assuming that the incentives the game provides its players are similar to the incentives our economy provides CEOs, then the game could teach players that CEOS don't have to be immoral to do immoral things—they just have to rationally respond to incentives. The way to change their behavior is not to criticize them as evil people, but to restructure the incentives that make ordinary, rational (or at least predictably irrational) people behave evilly. Which then leads to a discussion of how hard it is to design incentive structures, and could get people interested in game theory.
posted by Rangi at 7:35 PM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

This game is called "Monopoly."

Monopoly is a terrible capitalism simulator, as demonstrated by all the different house rules people have for making it more interesting. Side deals, using railroads for transport, custom Chance cards, a stock market, collateralized debt, bank theft... (The "collect taxes on Free Parking" rule is just crazy, though.)
posted by Rangi at 7:39 PM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

It would be funny if the same writer at the Grauniad watched a group of "liberal hipsters" playing Diplomacy. What universal lessons about human behavior could be extrapolated then, I wonder?
posted by Nevin at 8:15 PM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

The classic problem presented by the game is one all managers face: short-term issues, usually involving cashflow, versus the long-term challenge of nurturing your workforce and your client base.

No. The failure to plan long term is an error of value investing. Short-term valuations of the stock are the only way large capitalist entities can profit within the narrow window of an individual working for the corporation can effect. Therefore, all their profit-making strategies revolve around that time frame.

But the longer term interest is that the potential profits and current positive liabilities over debits that the capital itself be preserved. That is in the long-term interest of the corporation. What value investing did was take dividends out of the picture and give the value of a stock as the current price. The result was inevitable. CEOs and top management became oriented to shorter and shorter value timeframes, especially as boards began using option-based compensation.

It costs nothing up front for a board to offer options. The person has to provide before getting the payment. In times of general stock price increase, it has some value. But when things go bad, it offers less motivation. You'd think the result would be firing the CEO. Instead, it is to grant options on easier terms to be competitive. And that's the core of the CEO pay problem.

Really, how much the CEO makes in comparison to the least paid employees is less important than removing the incentives for short-term goals over long-term goals. We need to teach a different credo in business school. The long-term value of the capital itself is what the corporation is, separate from the current investors. When that value comes close to the current value of the corporation, it should be broken up. But when a CEO can get a payout from a spinoff or dismantling of a company, then the common business rule should be retain the capital until the future value in current dollars is about to dip below the future value of the corporation.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:20 PM on June 1, 2015 [2 favorites]

That's not a binary choice, though. So, I think the "game" is likely tailored to specifically make a hammer-handed, bullshit point, because capitalism is bad, mmm-kay?

It's far from clear that's true--the article says they have a "route in the decision tree" which you reach if you make ethics-focused decisions but few people get there. Presumably the early parts of the game give negative feedback for certain choices and most people assume those are "the rules" and keep playing that way.
posted by mark k at 8:38 PM on June 1, 2015

this part jumped out at me:

Banks create money because the state awards them the right to. Why does the state ram-raid the homes of small-time drug dealers, yet call in the CEOs of the banks whose employees commit multimillion-pound frauds for a stern ticking off over a tray of Waitrose sandwiches? Answer: because a company has limited liability status, created by parliament in 1855 after a political struggle.

Our fascination with market forces blinds us to the fact that capitalism – as a state of being – is a set of conditions created and maintained by states. Today it is beset by strategic problems: debt- ridden, with sub-par growth and low productivity, it cannot unleash the true potential of the info-tech revolution because it cannot imagine what to do with the millions who would lose their jobs.

When is a Felony Not a Felony? When You're a Bank! "Congress created these automatic disqualifications for a reason— it was very much an intended consequence. Unfortunately, it’s an intended consequence regulators continue to ignore, as they posture that they know better than both Congress, and the everyday Americans who don’t have the luxury of a captured cop on the beat."

so what can be done?
-Going Past Capital
-Technological Underemployment: Addressing Common Objections[*]
-public institutions need to reassert control over the money supply :P
posted by kliuless at 9:22 PM on June 1, 2015 [1 favorite]

the article says they have a "route in the decision tree"

See, the problem with the "choose your own adventure" game or decision tree is that it's finite. In their game, you either make a ton of money and you're evil, or you make a little money but you can sleep at night.

The game doesn't include the option where you make billions and then go off and cure malaria.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 9:42 PM on June 1, 2015

See, the problem with the "choose your own adventure" game or decision tree is that it's finite. In their game, you either make a ton of money and you're evil, or you make a little money but you can sleep at night.

My point was that's not at all clear (at least to me.) It seemed to me the game might have been structured so being consistently ethical got you negative feedback early but opened up monetary possibilities later. (I'm making assumptions, including that they wanted to be coy about it so audiences are not meta-gaming.)
posted by mark k at 10:15 PM on June 1, 2015

Banks create money because the state awards them the right to. Why does the state ram-raid the homes of small-time drug dealers, yet call in the CEOs of the banks whose employees commit multimillion-pound frauds for a stern ticking off over a tray of Waitrose sandwiches? Answer: because a company has limited liability status, created by parliament in 1855 after a political struggle.

They don't.

Because under the law, they are not frauds. People think the fraud and securities fraud statutes apply in these situations. None of them ever cite which law they think was broken.
posted by Ironmouth at 11:24 PM on June 1, 2015

Now that I think about this more, there's already a game about capitalism, one that literally everyone has played, that shows that people will do bad things to each other if given the chance.

This was more or less the express purpose of creating Monopoly (initially called The Landlord's Game) in the early 20th century.
posted by Dr Dracator at 5:39 AM on June 2, 2015

"Yeah, the problem here is that they know it's just a game. Lots of people will behave like evil CEOs if they know they aren't hurting real people"
posted by Uther Bentrazor at 6:27 AM on June 2, 2015 [2 favorites]

Last time I played diplomacy (against other mefites no less) it ended in a 6 way declared world peace. (Not Germany though, they betrayed the alliance and deserved their fate)

So come at with your ethics game I will ethics you so hard!
posted by Just this guy, y'know at 7:11 AM on June 2, 2015

But that's not the point of the game. In terms of what the "liberal hipsters and Chinese sweatshops" scenario tells us about human nature, I guess you could say that "capitalism necessitates treating individuals as mere inputs rather than as human beings" (and I'm not sure if I buy this at all), but that's hardly an original observation.
posted by Nevin at 10:37 AM on June 2, 2015