Have you ever played Monopoly? Of course you have!! We all have. Usually as kids and maybe even as adults. But, have you ever noticed, how often playing this "game" ends in upset? Last year our niece and nephew came for a visit and we ended up playing Monopoly. And... sure enough... it ended in upset. Why is that?
A few things come to mind. The game itself doesn't require a high degree of skill, but depends upon a lot of luck based on the roll of the dice. And this luck can seem rather unfair to those who are not as lucky. On top of that... the game is designed so that there is one winner who bankrupts the rest of the players. So, it's not just luck... but there is an actual streak of malice that can develop with the ultimate goal of destroying the other players. Toss in a bit of cheating... "No, that was a 6 you rolled, not a 7!"... and... we have a great recipe for game boards being tossed in the air, money thrown around and people storming off in huffs. And this is fun?
At a much deeper level, the game Monopoly, as its name suggests is solidly based in the idea of rampant capitalism where the small fish get eaten by the big fish until there is just the big fish. There is no room for the little fish to eke out a living on the fringes. All gets subsumed into the big conglomerates. And this is a good thing?
I was reading the book, Doughnut Economics, the other week (excellent book, by the way), and she mentioned the actual history of Monopoly. It's not what I had always thought it was. It wasn't invented by a man named Charles Darrow in the 1930s and sold to Parker Brothers. Even though Charles Darrow made millions off the game. Noooo... it was invented in 1903 by a woman named Lizzie Magie. And she had a much, much different vision of the game... because she was actually an anti-capitalist.
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| Look familiar? A 1924 version of The Landlord's Game as patented by Lizzie Magie. |
Her game was called the Landlord's Game and it had two sets of rules, one based on monopoly and one based on anti-monopoly. It was designed to teach children (and adults) about the dangers of capitalism and introduce them to another idea... the single tax (land value tax)... the invention of political economist Henry George.
In the monopolist version of the game, landlord's make money off of their land and the goal is to push all of the other players to bankruptcy. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We know this version really well.
The anti-monopolist version, however was different. Whenever someone purchased land or added an improvement or collected rent, a portion was siphoned off as a single tax (land value tax) and distributed to the other players. The goal of that game was that the player who started the game with the least amount of money had doubled their money. Everyone ended up as a winner. I rather doubt that board games were tossed around in upset in the anti-monopolist version of Lizzie's game.
Lizzie's game was wildly popular and passed around by word of mouth with the "board" drawn on canvas. People tweaked the rules, tweaked the names of the lots on the board, until finally, Charles Darrow played a version of the game, tweaked it a bit more and sold it to Parker Brother's. The rest we know.
Sooo... now... the question becomes... could we revive an anti-monopolist version of the game? Could we play the game differently - not as budding capitalists but as something else... to teach cooperation and the benefit of shared resources. Maybe the world could be a different place... I'm going to have to read Henry George's book (if it's not too dense)...
For those interested... here are some other resources....
The Surprising History Behind Monopoly - YouTube video 4.5 minutes
Monopoly is Theft - Harper Magazine - 2012
The Landlord's Game - A Parable for Modern Times - Medium, 2018
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