December 5, 2023: Board Game Studying: Monopoly

[On December1, 1948, a Connecticut inventor named James Brunot copyrighted a newboard game called Scrabble. Like many great games Scrabblehas endured and grown ever since, so for the 75thanniversary of that pivotal moment I’ll AmericanStudy it and a handful of otherboard games. I’d love your thoughts on these, others, and board games over fora competitive yet collaborative crowd-sourced weekend post!]

On point,counterpoint, and counter-counterpoint when it comes to a complex game of capitalism.

I think it’sbecome relatively common knowledge that the board game which evolved intoMonopoly was originally invented to be critical of that capitalist concept. Butit still bears repeating just how fully and intentionally that was the case: Elizabeth“Lizzie” Magie (1866-1948), a radical feminist author and activist whosubscribed to HenryGeorge’s progressive and anti-monopolist economic theories, invented The Landlord’s Game in 1904 and beganself-publishing copies in 1906 in order to educate the public on the dangers ofmonopolies. To that point (but perhaps also unintentionally complicating it, aswe will see), Magieincluded two sets of rules with that original version of the game: amonopolist set that rewarded players for bankrupting their opponents; and ananti-monopolist set which rewarded each player when all players did well. I’lldedicate a post later in the week to collaborative games, but it’s pretty interestingto think that Monopoly had the potential to be part of that genre.

That itdid not evolve that way is due largely to a moment and person which togetherembody the worst kind of the capitalism that Magie and her game critiqued. TheLandlord’s Game never achieved huge success but remained in distribution forthe rest of Magie’s life, and at a 1932 dinner party in Philadelphia anunemployed man (as with the invention of Scrabble yesterday, this was theDepression era) named Charles Darrowplayed the game with a few friends. Darrow loved the game, took a written copyof the rules home with him that night, and apparently decided to startdistributing it (with some changes to the rules and board, but with the coreconcepts the same) as his own invention under the name Monopoly. It was fromDarrow that ParkerBrothers originally bought the rights to the game in 1935, although totheir credit when they learned about Magie’s version they also bought therights to her patent. But while Parker Brothers may have done the right thing,Darrow clearly learned precisely the wrong lesson from The Landlord’s Game, andthen some—he didn’t even purchase the property from which he would seek to makehis fortune, but simply stole it from its rightful owner. (That’s my interpretationof asomewhat ambiguous situation, at least.)

In anycase, after Parker Brothers acquired the game and (with the help of cartoonistF.O. Alexander) significantly developed the board and look, Monopoly tookoff and became the iconic board game it has remained ever since. Oneparticularly interesting moment in that trajectory, and one that definitelyrelates to Magie’s original vision, took place in 1973, when San FranciscoState University Economics ProfessorRalph Anspach (1926-2022) published his own competing game entitled Anti-Monopoly(alternately known as Bust the Trust). Parker Brothers successfully sued fortrademark infringement, but Anspachwon on appeal, with the court ruling that monopoly was too generic of aconcept to be trademarked; Anspach was able to keep producing his game for therest of his life, even after a new 1984 law generallyprotected trademarks more rigorously. I won’t pretend to know the ins and outsof copyright law, past or present, but I will say that a game calledAnti-Monopoly challenging Monopoly’s hold on the market is about aspitch-perfect for the origin story and inventor of this board game as anydetail could get.

Next boardgame tomorrow,

Ben

PS. Whatdo you think? Other games you’d highlight for the weekend post?