Monopoly was originally designed to warn players about the dangers of capitalism – but it ended up celebrating getting rich.
The first version of the board game was called ‘The Landlord’s Game’ and was supposed to show the unfairness of private property ownership. It was created in 1902 by Elizabeth Magie who believed in fairer taxation and wanted a single tax on land ownership to replace all other taxes.
She thought it was grossly unfair that landlords raked in profits by passively owning land and wanted to change it.
The board game she called ‘The Landlord’s Game’ was essentially a satire and she thought that when people played it they would ‘see clearly the gross injustice of our present land system. How wrong she was, in her original version players used paper money to buy utilities and property, just like the modern game. But instead of passing ‘Go’ and collecting £200, you passed a square marked ‘Labor upon Mother Earth produces wages’ and got £100.
One corner of the board was marked ‘No Trespassing. Go to Jail’ which she said was owned by a British lord and was to signify ‘foreign ownership of American soil’.
Magie patented The Landlord’s Game in 1904 and approached board game makersed Parker Bros.. but they passed, saying it was too complicated.
Meanwhile the game spread around the country – people made their own versions with paper – until it found its way to Charles Darrow in Philadelphia in 1933. He was shown the game by his friend Charles Todd and promptly stole the idea and passed it off as his own, adding some more colour to the board and suggesting people use small household objects as playing tokens.
During the 1930s it began to sell steadily at stores until in 1935 Parker Brothers decided to buy it from Darrow for £7,000, around £121,000 in current money.
Parker Brothers added playing pieces like a shoe, a top hat and an iron, the Chance and Community Chest cards and a cartoon character who was called Mr Monopoly, which spawned the game’s new name.
Parker Brothers tried to patent the game but realized that Darrow did not actually own it.
They had to pay £10,000 to Daniel Lyman who had patented his own version called Finance.
They also tracked down Magie, who was living in Arlington, Virginia and paid her with a commitment that they would make a version of the Landlord’s Game.
Darrow meanwhile made millions, even after Parker Brothers reduced his royalties.
In 1939 when Parker Brothers eventually made The Landlord’s Game it bombed and most of the 10,000 copies were returned. Magie would no doubt have been heartbroken.
Author Tristan Donovan writes:: ‘Players looked at Monopoly and decided they wanted to be the rich monopolistic landlord’ After all who wants to be poor?
