The Chris Moeller Archives

Prosperity for all participants

Charles Darrow of Philadelphia didn't really invent the Monopoly board game, as Hasbro would have us believe in their materials. It turns out that's just another capitalist myth. The original game actually dates back three decades before Darrow's patent, to 1903, and to actress Lizzie Magie's "The Landlord's Game," which she drew up as a tribute to the Socialist teachings of writer Henry George, a man who believed that no single person could "own' land. Below is an image of Magie's original board, examined in detail in this week's issue of Harper's, in a piece by Christopher Ketcham.



Recognize the properties, the scrip, the "Chance" spaces, the utilities, the Central Park "free parking" square, even the "luxury tax"? Instead of a bank, there's a "public treasury." Oh, the irony that the world-famous parlor game devoted to the topic of unregulated capitalism would be the product of intellectual theft. Or to at least the capitalist appropriation of a game provided by an altruistic woman to the public domain. Parker Brothers, do not pass the "Labor Upon Mother Earth Produces Wages" square. Do not collect $200.

When I have played the "Monopoly" game in the past, I have repeatedly tried to get my opponents to agree to the creation of an ad hoc regulatory commission among our members, a bureaucratic system of checks and balances that could help us to avoid monopolies being formed on the board. I never understood how we could all jump into participation and get behind a system that left all but one of us financially destitute by the end. With cooperation between players, we could build so much more than just houses and hotels, we could build museums, schools, parks, libraries, the sky's the limit. This little history lesson proves I was on to something.

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The smallest army since 1940? The smallest navy since 1915?  Twenty three percent across-the-board military cuts? I say it's high time we leap off that fiscal cliff! Are there better ways to cut defense spending? I'm sure there are. Are we going to see defense cuts otherwise? No.

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Really? Of all the horrific shit David Petraeus has done? Breaking his wedding vows was the big one?

posted by CM @ 6:49 PM