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Secret history of Monopoly: the capitalist board game’s leftwing origins (2015)
- dalke 11y agoFor a video presentation by the Pilon, who is the author and researcher of this article, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CpE8K4ts6s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CpE8K4ts6s .
- nkurz 11y agoThere was discussion recently on HN about Henry George and his theories of a "single land tax": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11158398 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11158398 Apparently, the board game Monopoly had its origins as an illustration of Georgism, and originally had two sets of rules: From its inception, the Landlord’s Game aimed to seize on the natural human instinct to compete. And, somewhat surprisingly, Lizzie created two sets of rules: an anti- monopolist set in which all were rewarded when wealth was created, and a monopolist set in which the goal was to create monopolies and crush opponents. Her vision was an embrace of dualism and contained a contradiction within itself, a tension trying to be resolved between opposing philosophies. However, and of course unbeknownst to Lizzie at the time, it was the monopolist rules that would later capture the public’s imagination. Many more details and links about the original game are here: http://landlordsgame.info/ http://landlordsgame.info/