Counterfactual — What would have happened if everyone had played the original version of the Monopoly game ?
Most of us have played Monopoly in our lives.
The principle of the game is very simple.
It’s a dog eat dog , the “pie is fixed” world.
You increase your money by taking it from others .
You win when the others lose.
Eventually, there is only one winner.
Monopoly basically teaches you how to create a monopoly. Pretty similar to how the real world works right?
Yes, most of the time.
Now we are thinking- what a devilishly, brilliant way to imbibe the worst principles of capitalism in young kids. More effective than anything Adam Smith would have done to advance the cause of capitalism.
The inventor of the game must have surely been a diehard disciple of monopolistic capitalism.
No.
The inventor Lizzie Magie was in fact a staunch anti-monopolist. She created the game as a way to demonstrate that an economy which rewards wealth creation ( increasing the size of the pie) is better than one where monopolists work under few constraints.
Originally called The Landlord’s Game, it was created to promote the anti — monopolistic theories of the economist Henri George.
Small digression about Henri George.
George’s theories called Georgism , is an economic ideology that argues that, while people should own the value they produce themselves, economic value derived from land (often including natural resoources and natural opportunities) should belong equally to all members of society. The Georgist paradigm seeks solutions to social and ecological problems, based on principles of land rights and public finance which attempt to integrate economic efficiency with social justice
Taken as is, these policies are harsh on the capitalists and landowners. But there is a lot of merit in a tweaked version. Make the distribution equitable not equal. Reward the capitalist sufficiently to fuel his innovation and enterprise.
Back to the game.
Lizzie created two versions of the game.
An anti-monopolist one in which all were rewarded when wealth was created, and a monopolist version in which the goal was to create monopolies and crush opponents.
Unfortunately, for all the future kids of the world (as well as their adult selves), when Parker Brothers ( later acquired by Hasbro ) bought the patent, they decided to dump the anti-monopolistic format and only sell the evil version. Given the success of the game, you can’t fault them.
But imagine a world, in which the Parker Brothers went the other way.
And all the kids grew up playing a game in which
Nobody lost
You shared a part of your wealth with everyone if you made a lot of money.
The game ended when everyone reached a certain money level.
Everyone won in the end or you kept working towards it.
These children would have created a different world.
It would be a much nicer world :-)
