Political Memes

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.

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 -.-

She based the game on the economic principles of Georgism, a system proposed by Henry George, with the object of demonstrating how rents enrich property owners and impoverish tenants.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.