as we hear more politicians talk about universal basic income, it's important to remember, Monopoly has a universal basic income in it (passing GO). it's better than not having it, but capitalism is still unsustainable, even with UBI.
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
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And do you also know why this is the case?
Because Monopoly originally was two games. One that basically works like Monopoly, with the outcome described in the the post, and another one, the "anti-monopolist" version was based on the concept of just paying tax for the land you own, which makes it more expensive for one person to own a lot of the board. This version never ended.
Elisabeth Magie created the game (called "The Landlord's Game") with these two rule sets to teach people about Georgism, which is a system in which tax is only raised on the land you own. It should show people that a system leading to monopoles is bad, and Georgism is good.
Then the Parker Brothers bought the rights to the game from someone who didn't own them, dropped the Georgism version and sold it with a rich, fat, old, white man on the covers who swims in money and is super happy, which kinda teaches exactly the opposite that Elisabeth Magie intended.
Then they used their position in the market to crowd out all the other versions of that game.
A truely American story, once the Parker Brothers entered the game -.-
A game developed to show the inevitable failure of late stage capitalism becomes highly successful and kills all other competitors. Fate is cruel and twisted.
To be fair, in 1904 wasn't exactly late stage capitalism yet, but it was failing maybe even more than now. Actually, there aren't many stages of capitalism where it didn't massively fail the poorer people.
basically just capitalist realism in action, all art critical of capitalism ends up being subsumed, made meaningless and even ends up contributing to capitalism
Interesting! I never actually played it but I always thought the point was that it was shitty if you actually had to live that way, it's called monopoly after all
I played it quite a few times as a kid (my family always wanted to play it for reasons that are beyond my understanding) and I always saw it as "You really want to become a millionaire, then you win, and screw the poor losers that didn't make it".
Got any links for more information on this?
Thanks, you where faster than me.
Thanks for this. I was going to post about this history, but you already had done it (and better than I would have). Much appreciated.
Great Scot! I never knew!
It also had a second rule set, whereby a land value tax (LVT) — one of the most central proposed policies of Georgism — is implemented and the winning condition is when everybody attains a certain level of wealth. A game of mutual prosperity, rather than crabs in a bucket with winner-takes-all.
And although LVT is the most central proposed policy of Georgism, Georgists also advocate for carbon taxes (and other taxes on negative externalities), severance taxes on finite natural resources like oil or minerals, intellectual property (IP) reform, and eliminating barriers to entry. (It should be noted that Georgists want to replace bad/inefficient taxes like sales, income, and property taxes with LVT, externality (aka Pigouvian), and severance taxes.)
As for why LVT? In short, it's just a really good tax. Progressive, widely regarded by economists as "the perfect tax", incentivizes efficient use of land, discourages speculation and rent-seeking, economically efficient, and hard to evade. Plus, critically regarding landlords, land value taxes can't be passed on to tenants, both in economic theory and in observed practice.
In fact, it's so well-regarded a tax that it's been referred to as the "perfect tax", and is supported by economists of all ideological stripes, from free-market libertarians like Milton Friedman — who famously described it as the "least bad tax" — to social democrats and Keynesians like Joseph Stiglitz. It's simply a really good policy that I don't think is talked about nearly enough.
Even a quite milquetoast land value tax, such as in the Australian Capital Territory, has been shown to reduce speculation and improve affordability:
It reveals that much of the anticipated future tax obligations appear to have been already capitalised into lower land prices. Additionally, the tax transition may have also deterred speculative buyers from the housing market, adding even further to the recent pattern of low and stable property prices in the Territory. Because of the price effect of the land tax, a typical new home buyer in the Territory will save between $1,000 and $2,200 per year on mortgage repayments.
Ok, I’m sold.
It's so ironic that Elizabeth Magie's "The Landlord's Game" was stolen by Parker Brothers and is now one of the most blatantly capitalist products in the world.
Wasn't stolen by Parker Brothers so much as it was stolen by Charles Darrow.
You're right, I got my history mixed up there.
I wouldn’t have known it if I hadn’t skimmed the Wikipedia article. And Parker Brothers knew Darrow wasn't the inventor and they did the “business” to buy it from him anyway.
And if you're born around 2000 year, you start the game where all the fields are taken, and there is a hotel on each field.
Also crazy how end-game prison is comparable to homeless people commiting crimes, so they can have roof over their heads.
It’s a good metaphor. What happened to Monopoly is that people shifted the rules around to make the game last longer, which allows them to pretend nothing’s wrong. But in the end, the game is the same.
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
Let’s play Global Thermonuclear War!
I actually used to know a card game called thermonuclear war. Sort of similar to war where the highest card wins, but both players take 5 cards off the top and can play them in any order. Also you start out with the 2's being nukes, and will destroy any card they're played against, and once those are depleted the 3's become active. When 2 nukes meet the remaining cards in hand are wiped out and then there's something about flipping more cards off the deck to see who win the round, which occasionally ends up with more nukes coming out with more destruction.
Can't quite remember all the rules around nuke deployment but it was an apt name because quite often both players had all their cards demolished, showing that in nuclear war there are no winners.
How about a nice game of chess?
No it's even worse.
I remember a match with a friend of mine, where I would give him every turn so much money and loans that he could survive just by a little bit. All of this happend while I was finalising every possible building to make sure, that he would have even less a chance.
This is exactly how it works in real life. We get barly enough money to survive and give us the illusion of free will and hope.
It was originally designed and marketed by Quakers as a warning against capitalism.
But capitalism consumed it. Exactly as expected.
Oh man, I did that too as a kid. My dad didn't like to play those extended games but my 13 year old self just couldn't understand why!
The funniest thing is that Monopoly is actually really fast when you play by the rules, but it basically goes on forever if you use house rules like putting fines at Free Parking. Socialism for the win!
I must point out because it's often said incorrectly, having social programs does not mean socialism. Thank you for your time :)
Housing shortage tactic. The only part of Monopoly that isn't capitalism.
Rules state you cannot build hotels unless you have four houses on the board. You cannot get four houses on the board if a player has traded all their top properties for cheap ones and stacked all the houses available on their sets, refusing to buy hotels even though they totally could.
If you want to take down your smuggy friends and watch their expensive properties crumble, get the cheapest sets and stop at low density residential. Their greed will be their downfall. Your restraint will prevail and 24 households remain instead of six profitable hotels.
Yeah, supply shortages for an advantage against your opponents that rely on artifical scarcity... definitely not based in capitalism.
I believe it would be the state capping how much development can happen on the board, hence we see these laws in the rule sheet. We can't have the natural beauty of the board devastated by limitless suburban sprawl everywhere. Zoning limits and development caps are critical to a sustainable environment and infrastructure.
People really played Monopoly as kids and really went "yeah, that's how the world should be"
My sister, me and my parents played Monopoly once on Christmas. My sister broke the game by simply refusing to trade, so nobody could get any hotels. The game ended with my mother screaming in anger, my father laughing and my sister sitting in the chair with crossed arms. It was eye-opening. Now, even mentioning the game on family gatherings nets you snide remarks.
Maybe we can try this new thing "Jumanji" next :-O
it's why monopoly was invented before capitalists took it and made it marketable family fun
It's really not a perfect metaphor for capitalism though. Just look at any high street in a less than prosperous town. Landlords may own the buildings, but if people can't afford to run businesses or pay for services, they sit vacant or are sold off to other people who can run other businesses with different profit potential.
Monopoly is too simplistic because the rents are fixed. If the owners of the properties were able to set the rents variably at whatever the demand could afford, and the game modelled mortgage rates and inflation, then this would be a suitable critique.
Of course it's a big simplification. Even the concept that you have to pay rent on the square you land on. Not having the choice which building you want to rent makes variable rents completely useless.
Because if you don't have a choice and have to pay rent on the field you land on, why would the owner of that building do anything but maximize the rent?
But it was never intended to be a perfect model of capitalism, but instead a simple tool to teach regular people why monopoles suck and using a property tax as the single tax is better.
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