I thought it was a fair offer. “I’ll trade you the two red ones and Virginia, plus $200, for the two railroads and Water Works.” “No way,” she shot back scornfully, “then you’ll have all the railroads and we’ll have to cough up two hundred dollars every time--you’ll get the money to put up hotels on Mediterranean and Baltic and the light blue ones and we’ll all be toast. Get lost, slumlord.”
         I was only playing by the rules, trying to expand my businesses in transportation, utilities, and low-income housing. All I did was offer a deal, and a good one at that. She could have simply said “no”--why did she have to be so angry about it?
         Many Americans have at some time or other played Monopoly; it’s a cultural reference that ties us together, almost like that enduring movie The Wizard of Oz. First mass-marketed by the Parker Brothers company in the 1930s, Monopoly has remained sufficiently popular that Hasbro, Inc.--current owner of the Parker Brothers label--now offers numerous Monopoly variations alongside the classic real-estate trading game. In a “dot-com” version, players divide and seek to conquer cyberspace. A deluxe edition of Monopoly comes with wooden (not plastic) houses and hotels. There’s a hand-held electronic version, and a CD-ROM where the mustachioed “Mr. Monopoly” comes alive through animation. Hasbro sells a Las Vegas version, and a Disney version where players can corner the market on classic Disney films and amass Disney dollars. They even offer a Jurassic version, where players land on dinosaurs and collect fossils, then charge the other dice-rolling paleontologists fees to study the ancient bones: “collect the most fossils, and the most money, and you win!”
         All versions of the game share one objective: own it all, a phrase that has actually been trademarked by Hasbro. If anyone else starts making money with those three little words, they’ll have to answer to Hasbro’s lawyers.
         I love playing Monopoly (the basic version), and am glad the game has survived. In my childhood we played a lot, and were loose with the rules: You collected a double salary if you landed on “Go,” and all fines and taxes along with a whopping $500 bonus went to the center of the board, to be picked up by the next player who landed on “Free Parking”--after which the bank kicked in another $500 to replenish the endless jackpot. It was like a new age dream, with prosperity and abundance for all. But runaway inflation increased the luck factor, and whoever ended up with high-rent Boardwalk and Park Place usually won. This expanded luck component substituted for our childish inability to engage in cutthroat capitalism. Today, I find that following the rules makes the game a lot more interesting. When money is scarce, decisions become agonizing. Should I really mortgage the two green ones and the two yellow ones in order to put up houses on the orange properties--putting all my eggs in one basket?
         I suspect that Monopoly’s popularity stems largely from its parallels with real life in our sometimes dog-eat-dog world. Many people in the U.S. work overtime today, trying to get all the property and all the money--either for themselves or for the corporate employers to whom they are beholden. Own it all.
         The content of Monopoly is reflected in the game’s own history.
         The official history, which begins with a Big Lie, goes like this: During the Great Depression, an unemployed Pennsylvanian named Charles Darrow invented the game and tried to sell it to Parker Brothers. He was turned down, so--with the help of a printer friend--he began to produce and market the game himself. It was wildly popular and Darrow was soon unable to meet the demand. Parker Brothers reconsidered, bought the rights from Darrow, and began selling millions of game sets. Darrow collected royalties on all games sold and became fabulously well-to-do.
         It’s a great story, a story in which the American myth shines clear: a self-made millionaire rises from obscurity, powered by nothing more than a good idea and a bit of persistence. This, despite the content of the game itself--which shows that money and property are essential factors for the acquisition of more money and property. In Monopoly, everyone starts out equal--with $1500 and a roll of the dice. In real life, many aren’t so lucky.
         Darrow didn’t really invent the game--he merely claimed he had, and got away with it. Monopoly had been around for a long time, and had developed through the contributions of many players. The best claim for actual creation of the game lies with a Quaker named Lizzie Magie, who in 1904 received a patent on The Landlord’s Game, which she had invented as a fun way to explore the injustices stemming from domination in land ownership.
         Next time, I’ll discuss what really happened.
 
 
 

         Here's the second article: Monopolizing Monopoly.