Monopoly, the game, is propaganda

Over the years, the strongest challenge to my minimize-the-government libertarian ideas has been anarcho-capitalism. This blog post isn't about that. The second strongest challenge to my libertarian ideas has been Georgism. Ultimately I rejected Georgism, but I don't have good arguments against it, and the arguments Georgists raise are fairly persuasive. This blog post isn't exactly about that, either.

It turns out that the famous game, Monopoly, has it roots in Georgism. One of the ideas of Georgism is that outright ownership of land is wrong. Folks ought to be taxed on the land and the tax money ought to be distributed to the landless. Unfairness of real estate is close to the heart of Georgism. And the game vividly depicts a nightmare world in which the whole human race (with a lone exception) will end up in Jail or the poorhouse--all due to the supposed evil of land ownership. So the game Monopoly is good introductory propoganda for Georgism. In real life, one can move away from excessive rents, which puts a downward pressure on rents--this is left out of Monopoly, and as a result, rents in Monopoly can get quite high.

Now to the main reason for this blog post: the history of Monopoly, and its predecessor, the Landlord's Game is worth reading.

The link mentions Georgism in passing, and discusses copyright and patent issues as well.

David Oakey