Well, the people on the island had a better reason to behave badly. If they were cunning enough about screwing the others, they'd get the money. No merit badges awarded in that troop. No merit badges, and no moral compass, on the island either. This was a formal notice that a person, or a family, was not wanted in the town and would have to leave, for whatever reason.
Ostracism is an old, sometimes brutal instrument of tribal discipline.
But I doubt the Vermonters were ever goaded into such cruelty by television producers dangling a million dollars.