Players act as policymakers fixing problems in a tribal hamlet, then discover that the people who live there know far more than any planner.
Why
The economist Friedrich Hayek argued that the knowledge needed to solve society’s problems is dispersed: it lives in the heads of millions of people, in their circumstances and experience. No central planner, however well-meaning, can gather all of it. This idea sits at the heart of our philosophy, and Society Solves lets people feel it rather than just hear it.
How it works
Participants are split into groups of policymakers and given a set of social problems in a tribal hamlet. Each group designs solutions and presents them with confidence. Then the game reveals what the community itself wants, and it turns out to be completely different from what the planners proposed.
The lesson lands quickly: policymakers work under real constraints and with limited knowledge, while society, through lived experience, cooperation and local knowledge, is often best placed to solve its own problems.
Where we’ve played it
We designed Society Solves for the Justicemakers Mela 2025, Agami’s gathering of justice changemakers from across India, held at the Rajasthan International Centre in Jaipur. Our co-founders ran it as a one-hour workshop on 6 December 2025.
