Monopoly, the Game

I’ve played a lot of Monopoly when I was a kid, and like anyone at that age, neither knew nor cared about the history or the origins of the game. So it was kind of a surprise to me to read this history of the game that talked about how it may have been designed to drive home the downside of monopolies and the benefits of co-operation!

Officially (and as per the patents record), Monopoly was invented by Charles Darrow. But it looks like a very similar game was invented by Lizzie Magie to teach:

“the philosophy of Henry George, a nineteenth-century writer who had popularized the notion that no single person could claim to “own” land.”

Henry George was disgusted with the economic system of the day where landowners got rent even though they were doing nothing. Whereas the people who worked on that land and produced value (agricultural or industrial goods) made nothing since most of their income got transferred as land rent. So he concluded that “private property in land is robbery”.

Sound like communism? Except that unlike communists, George realized that land seizure by the government would only lead to tyranny. So he felt that:

“it is not necessary to confiscate land; it is only necessary to confiscate rent”

while leaving land ownership in the hands of whoever was holding the title to it. In other words, rent was the key as per George. His moral argument for that (yes, all economic philosophies have a moral component. Communism’s is to look after everyone; capitalism’s is to reward hard work) was that the value of land increased because of society's activities on or around that area, so why should the landowner benefit with increased rent when all the work was done by the rest of society?

In Magie’s version of the game, players paid rent to the Treasury, not each other. And when the amount with the Treasury reached a certain threshold, the player owning a utility had to sell, which meant nobody who landed there had to pay any rent anymore. The game was trying to teach players the pain of private land ownership v/s benefit of shared ownership of public goods.

So why did the other version of the game, the one that rewards “ruthlessness of the individual and defines victory as the impoverishment of others” become the dominant one in existence? The answer’s simple:

“Georgist redistribution was not nearly as entertaining as ruining one another.”

Games are always about winning and losing. Ain’t that the truth?