A Monopoly of Prosperity
Board game economics, fused murals, striving children.
Hello there. You have most likely played the board game Monopoly at some point in your life, or at the very least are aware of it. Its origins and trajectory, though might be less familiar- an odd arc of capitalist tug of war. Trace this story today, and dabble in a few others. Hope you enjoy it, and share with others you think might too!
Monopolise: Irony of an ignored inventor.
Friday Find: Flowers in your hair, but not San Francisco.
Empire of Extraction: The imperialism of AI.
The Ordinary: Poetry to not strive.
With: Music of our times, a Lose Yourself edit, epic book clubs.
1. Monopolise
I listened to a podcast some time in 2023. On an episode of Your Undivided Attention, Kate Raworth spoke with host Tristan Harris. A self-described ‘renegade economist’, Kate shared how and why she developed her theory of ‘Doughnut Economics’. Much of her take appealed, but I recall specifically one bit where she spoke of the games she played with her young children- cooperative games, collaborative games that used teamwork. Then she mentioned, all of a sudden, Monopoly. Her perspective called out an old discomfort with the game.
And so to hell with Monopoly, and why the heck do people give it to their children for Christmas? You're telling them ‘extract from others until you're the only one left in the game’. It's the most disgusting version of human interaction, and it wasn't even designed to be like that.
‘Not designed to be that’? What does that mean- surely we all can agree the one thing Monopoly is about, is unabashed market forces?
Well yes, but…
1932
The Parker Brothers released a game created by one Charles Darrow. The out-of-work salesman would go on to become a millionaire, his board game ‘Monopoly’ a worldwide phenomenon earning billions in the the decades to come. Like the game, his story— reiterated in a note in every box— was a shining example of how an individual’s hard work and innovation will bring success. The American dream, if you will.
Well yes, but…
1903
Lizzie Magie was a multi-hyphenate long before the term came to be popular. Poet, writer, stenographer, comedian, inventor, feminist, economic activist… it was a long and diverse list. In 1903, she applied for and received a patent for a board game she had created a year or so ago- ‘The Landlord’s Game’.
To understand what it was, we look to a 1879 book, progressive economist Henry George's ‘Progress and Poverty’. Given to Lizzie by her father, the book advocated for a ‘single tax’ system, where land- considered part of nature and thus belonging to everyone- would be the primary source of government revenue, with the surplus distributed among citizens. His ideas deeply influenced Magie.
"What has destroyed every previous civilisation has been the tendency to the unequal distribution of wealth and power." _Henry George
The game's board, as illustrated in her patent application, has many features familiar to us: a continuous path around the board, wages collected for passing the start, four railroads, and of course "go to jail" with a corresponding "Jail" corner, property spaces, and deed cards. The board game came with 2 sets of rules; these two versions came to be called ‘Prosperity’ and ‘Monopoly’.
In the Monopolist set (Monopoly), players aimed to create monopolies and bankrupt others through property acquisition and rent collection. The last player standing was declared the winner. Familiar!
In the Anti-monopoly set (Prosperity), all players were rewarded when wealth was created. Victory was achieved collectively when the poorest player doubled their resources.
Lizzie believed this duality would heighten the contrast between the two systems, and educate players on the ills of a winner-takes-all society. She wrote, "It is a practical demonstration of the present system of land-grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences.”
That story of Darrow, enshrined into every Monopoly game, went thus.
‘PARKER BROTHERS Real Estate Trading Game MONOPOLY was invented during the Great Depression by Charles B. Darrow of Germantown, Pennsylvania. Mr. Darrow, like many other Americans, was unemployed at the time and he worked out the details of the game primarily to amuse himself during this period. Prior to the Depression, Darrow and his wife vacationed in the resort town of Atlantic City, New Jersey. When it came to naming the streets on the game board, Darrow naturally adopted those of his favourite vacation spot.
Well, yes but…
1976.
Economics professor Ralph Anspach is embroiled in a legal battle with The Parker Brothers. A few years ago, he had released a board game designed to teach players about the ills of real world monopolies- it was called Anti-Monopoly. As Anspach dug his heels in, he began to research the origins of their game. He slowly realised- and was able to prove- that the board game had existed for many years before Darrow.
For decades that blurb above was the story shipped in the box. Only, it wasn’t true. Anspach’s excavation of its history changed that, though the story he pieced together remained in obscurity till Mary Pilon laid out the fascinating (and sometimes unfortunate) journey in the next century, with her book ‘The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World’s Favorite Board Game’.
What was the series of events? Its got plenty of back and forth, but essentially Lizzie Magie’s The Landlord’s Game had limited success, though she pushed it as much as she could. Mass-produced board games were getting common but needed resources; games were as much shared by word of mouth and played on hand-drawn boards. While many accounts painting Darrow as a thief hold truths, the reality might be more nuanced. Look at this intricately traced series of connections, with the the starting point being Darrow’s dinner party at the home of his friends, the Todds.
Darrow learned the game at the Todds’ house, and the Todds learned it from a friend, Eugene Raiford. Eugene learned it from his brother, Jesse. Jesse learned it from Ruth Hoskins, who taught at a Quaker School in Atlantic City. Ruth learned it in Indianapolis, from someone named Dan Laymen, who had played it in his frat house in college. The frat brothers who taught everyone else to play were Louis and Ferdinand Thun. They learned it from their sister, Wilma, who learned it from her husband Charles Muhlenberg. Charles learned the game from Thomas Wilson, who learned it in his college economics class, with the radical Wharton/UPenn economics professor Scott Nearing. (Nearing played the game with his students until he was fired, in 1915, for criticizing industrial capitalism.) The trail ends here, for Nearing learned the game directly from its remarkable inventor, Elizabeth Magie, or Lizzie, who filed a patent for it in 1903.
Darrow thought the game had merit, but clearly did not invent it; yet the story was peddled across the decades. The partnership between Darrow and Parker Brothers proved remarkably effective at obscuring the true origins of Monopoly. For example, The Parker Brothers did buy up the rights to other related games to preserve Monopoly’s dominance. Eventually, for the patent to the Landlord’s Game and two other game ideas, Lizzie- now in her seventies- reportedly received $500. No royalties and no acknowledgement of her role in creating one of the most successful board games of all time. Robert Barton, Parker Brothers' president, admitted much later, "Whether [Darrow] got it all from Magie, whether he got it from somewhere else, we didn't know. And we cared very little.”
“A brilliant woman economist invented an anti-capitalist board game that was stolen by a lying, opportunistic man and repackaged as capitalist family fun.” ^
Winners
The irony of it all is hard to ignore. A game designed to critique wealth concentration and demonstrate the benefits of cooperative economics became one of capitalism's most celebrated artefacts; its creator story fading behind corporate machinations, her message entirely subverted.
Magie had envisioned her game as an educational tool that would “demonstrate to the players that the anti-monopoly version was the morally correct choice. Both in game, and, of course, in the real world”. Instead, generations have celebrated ruthless property acquisition and the elimination of competitors, without ever knowing the game's origins as a critique of those very practices.
She railed against it a little in her later years, yet she died in 1948 having seen her game achieve success, but her part in it fallen by the wayside. Who knows, her own words might today offer solace. Or at least, an explanation of corporate ways. Talking of The Landlord’s Game, she wrote “It might well have been called the 'Game of Life,' as it contains all the elements of success and failure in the real world, and the object is the same as the human race in general seem[s] to have- the accumulation of wealth.”
~ · ~
· Mary Pilon’s book · on Aeon · the history · ^public domain review · a stolen game ·
‘Doughnut Economics’ is where traditional growth-obsessed models give way to a sustainable, regenerative, and just economy. Listen to that podcast here.
2. Friday Find: Flowers In Your Hair
I was stopped and charmed by Brazilian street artist Fábio Gomes Trindade’s work. In vivid, pretty murals, he fuses the urban and the natural, weaving trees and flowers into the city landscape. His murals, mostly of women and children, find and integrate marvellously with existing trees, bushes and flowers.
· Fabio’s IG ·
3. An Empire of Extraction
“Swap out spices and cotton for content and code, ships for servers, and you don’t have to look hard to see the historical parallels.”
This, from an excellent read on the parallels between the great AI race and empire-building of our time, with imperial conquests from times gone by. The parallels are all too real; yet I fear the biggest of them is, that assumptions can be, will bel (and are being) made about human effort. The companies who are forging this path get to define progress.
It’s not just a metaphor to call this colonial. It’s the same structure. Companies behaving like empires, treating the digital world as unclaimed territory, free to plunder. No permission, no license, no payment. Just the assumption that anything online is theirs for the taking.
Much like most of colonialism, the march will continue (relatively) unchallenged, tom-tom-ing progress. The land-grab will be seen for what it was only much later, if not entirely retrospectively. It makes one wonder about history and its lessons we (choose to not) learn. In that light, this is such a worthy perspective from Nicholas Pickard .
4. The Ordinary
Wonderful words that speak of children, but apply to us all in some ways. They have lingered on the sidelines of this cafe for some time; this week felt nice to share them, for no particular reason.
Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives. Such striving may be admirable but it is the way of foolishness. Help them instead to find the wonder and the marvel of an ordinary life. Show them the joy of tasting tomatoes, apples, and pears. Show them how to cry when pets and people die. Show them the infinite pleasure in the touch of a hand. And make the ordinary come alive for them. The extraordinary will take care of itself.
This little cloud of wisdom, a reason to smile and an opportunity to pause, is by William Martin, from his 1999 book The Parent's Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents.
Masala Peanuts
(where I share stories or tidbits I find interesting).
Listen: A certain Caden Bohn feels too many people think music is trash these days; “ignorant bullshit” he calls it. He’s gone and done a “Music Sucks Now” project- a playlist with 101 songs, 100+ artists, zero repeats, dozens of genres- and a thread with blurbs on each track.
Watch: One of those random but fun internet things- someone decided to edit Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ using 331 different clips. That’s right, every word in the lyrics, sourced from movie clips.
Marvel: There’s a book club that has been working on a single book for over a decade now. Its James Joyce’s famously impenetrable ‘Finnegans Wake’. Well done, folks.
‘The equal right of all men to use the land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air – it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence’.
_Henry George