January 10, 2004

Monopoly

Posted by Chris

I’m just back from the Oxford Political Thought Conference — and great fun it was too. One of the things I managed to do in Oxford was to meet up with Chris Brooke of the Virtual Stoa in his palatial college rooms. Just over a year ago Chris and about the board games: me about playing Monopoly in the old GDR and he about Bertell Ollman’s game Class Struggle . I was fortunate enough to find myself sitting next to Professor Ollman at lunch today and asked him about the game, and one of the things he told me was the Monopoly itself was originally conceived as an anti-capitalist game by a follower of Henry George. The story of the game’s invention and its subsequent appropriation by Parker Brothers is here (scroll down to list of articles) and here .

Posted on January 10, 2004 08:39 PM UTC
Comments

I’d thought it was fairly obvious that Monopoly was anti-capitalist—it’s fun to play, but the game ends with one player owning, well, everything.

Posted by Randolph · January 12, 2004 02:10 AM

Hey, a GPL version would be fun!

Posted by Randolph Fritz · January 12, 2004 02:24 AM

I’d thought it was fairly obvious that Monopoly was anti-capitalist—it’s fun to play, but the game ends with one player owning, well, everything.

Not so much anti-capitalist as honest-about-capitalism, then?

Posted by Gregg · January 13, 2004 03:32 AM

If it was created by a follower of Henry George to illustrate his ideas (which is why that fact would be relevant, and which it actually does fairly well), can it really be called “anti-capitalist”? Anti-monopolist, yes, but…

Posted by Decnavda · January 13, 2004 03:55 AM
Followups

→ Sole Owner in the Blogosphere?.
Excerpt: Stopping by Crooked Timber, I noticed some discussion of the game Class Struggle. As I said this past summer, I found a copy at Goodwill and purchased it for approximately one dollar. The game is hilarious. If you ever play...Read more at Not Geniuses
→ Anti-Monopoly.
Excerpt: Thanks to Crooked Timber for pointing out this article entitled "Anti-Monopoly," in the Washington Free Press. It gives the true story of the history of the game Monopoly which was originally intended to be a game to point out the evils of capitalism. ...Read more at Brain Flossing
→ Monopoly on Monopoly?.
Excerpt:
The true history of Monopoly: capitalism is bad? And who really cares?

Read more at Walloworld

This discussion has been closed. Thanks to everyone who contributed.