The Steampunk Project

Back to posting after a long hiatus. ..

Here is an interesting article in Forbes on modern day child labor (linked from Daily Kos). It is very depressing, but definitely something that my students will read next year.

After playing Rage with my students in the fall, I would have to say that the most compelling of their arguments centered around the child labor issue.

Here is a quote from the Forbes article that spelled out pretty clearly where the students ended up while playing Rage:

The labor organizations can't agree on how to ameliorate the situation. Some say that children of poor families have to work in order to make ends meet and that the government should offer them night classes to prepare them for better jobs. Others want to end child labor by finding jobs for parents, thereby eliminating the necessity for kids to work. "There is obviously a demand for labor," says labor economist Ashok Khandelwal, who works with unions. "But if a child is working that [usually] means the parents aren't."

I am considering ways of elevating this issue to a more central position in the game. Shouldn't technology be helping this situation? What is the relationship between technology and child labor today, and what was it then?

This version of the game (number 7!) has been split into a student guide, instructor guide, and game outline.

Student Guide - contains historical background and all readings, so it's quite large



(Instructor Guide temporarily removed - email me for a copy!)

Game Outline - contains an overview of how game play might work. It will probably end up being rolled into the Instructor Manual in parts, and the "Schedule of Classes" section in both the other two manuals. This is basically what's leftover from the original Game Outline.

Man, I am cranking on this game! Here's version 6 (PDF). Some updates since I last wrote: added historical narrative, re-added the 2 reverends, worked out the procedure for machine breaking.

There are some holes, but it's coming along.

Here's a shout-out to fellow CATL Scholar, Tony Crider, who suggested the current (working?) name for the game: Rage Against the Machine.

Innovation and invention is a major theme of the class (GST 364) and the game I am developing. One of my cornerstone concepts for the class is that to innovate and to invent is a natural process. It comes naturally to people to innovate, to change, to question. (Do not conflate technology with innovation. Do not conflate innovation or technology with "progress". In many cases change or progress represents a reaction against technology as much as an escort towards it.)

Anyhow, while reading Wealth of Nations, I came across this excerpt from Chapter One on the division of labor:

A great part of the machines made use of in those manufactures in which labor is most subdivided, were originally the invention of common workmen, who, being each of them employed in some very simple operation, naturally turned their thoughts towards finding out easier and readier methods of performing it.

This reminded me of various studies of end-user innovation, which is of course not a new concept, but has been studied a great deal in the context of open source software development (my primary research interest). The cornerstone of open source software development is to embrace and extend end-user innovation by allowing users to view the source code of the software product.

So, it occurred to me to look in Eric von Hippel's work for any reference to Smith and this early observation of end-users innovating. Of course I found it. On page 21 of Democratizing Innovation, von Hippel mentions this very paragraph from Smith. Hurrah for research coming full circle.

I got the best book today from Amazon (used) for my little collection!

Society and Politics in England 1780-1960 by J.F.C. Harrison (1965) has dozens of short essays, articles, and excerpts from relevant primary source documents. Best part was it was only $2.75 used. I was so excited to get this!

Here are some of the best chapters -- the ones that I will be using to prepare for the game (some of these you can already see in Game Outline version 5 as student readings):

A Map of Society by Patrick Colquhoun
A Handloom Weaver's Life by Samuel Bamford
Change in the Cotton Industry by William Radcliffe
The Industrial Revolution in Manchester by John Aiken
Observations on the Manufacturing System by Robert Owen
A Protest Against Machinery by Yorkshire Cloth Workers
Support for Machinery by Leeds Cloth Merchants
The Principles of Political Economy by David Ricardo
A New View of Society by Robert Owen
An Initiation Ceremony of the Woolcombers Union

Version 5 (PDF | DOC) of my proto-game is now available, and it's a whopper. Coming in at over 100 pages, you can tell I've done some revisions lately!

Here are some of the changes since version 4:

• added snappy title (thanks Tony!)
• expanded role sheets
• added gameplay outline
• added strategy advisory/victory objectives some of the roles
• worked out an outline and spreadsheet for reckoning/reconciliation (this is still under review – shown in appendix as optional "module")
• added core reading assignments

The bulk of the pages are due to the readings. Like the Galileo game, I'd like to have readings embedded in the student manual rather than having to buy them separately. (Especially since I only want to use 3 chapters from Wealth of Nations!)

Comments are more than welcome; I feel like there are numerous problem areas still, but it's coming along...

For next revision:

• Flesh out remaining role sheets
• Specify what will happen on a die roll for the radical raids
• Add introductory material for students
• Add specific material about each invention, including drawings, and give technical information about the spinning/carding/weaving process
• and much much more...

Game version 5 is taking a little longer to get onto this site than I had expected. The reason for this is that I tried making an economic "reckoning" process that would happen at the end of each Market Day. The idea was that one of the reasons for the Luddite movement was financial (not the only reason, see EP Thompson).

So during "reckoning", each game member would pay the bills that are owed. My thinking is that economic impacts would spur the merchants to pick up factories faster, which would spur the Luddites to revolt faster.

I wrote a spreadsheet to allow the GM to control a few fixed items, such as the price of food. By raising the price of food, the GM can starve the Luddites into needing a wage raise. Whether they capitulate to demands or not, this request for a minimum wage or a wage raise prompts the merchants to want new technology, which puts the Luddites out of work entirely, causing them to revolt against the machines faster.

However, I've since reconfigured a few things and I am thinking about making the "economic reckoning" into a module that can be plugged in or unplugged from the game to make it either more or less complex.

Anyhow, there are a few other changes I am working on for Version 5 as well, including adding Role Sheets and victory objectives, removing the Reverends (sigh... sad, I know), removing all elected positions except for magistrate, more complex descriptions of day-to-day game flow and strategy for each day.

This week is my spring break, so the VERSION 5 WILL BE POSTED by the end of this week - by hook or by crook!