ryanpanos: Monopoly before Monopoly | Socks Studio “The landloard’s game” was the precursor of the w
ryanpanos: Monopoly before Monopoly | Socks Studio “The landloard’s game” was the precursor of the world famous board game “Monopoly” and it was invented in a claim for social and economic justice by a Quaker woman named Lizzie J. Magie. Lizzie J. Magie (1866–1948) was the member of a movement of followers of political economist Henry George, which supported a specific theory: that the renting of land and real estate produced an unerned increase in land values that profited a few individuals (the landowners) rather than the majority of people (the tenants). To prove her point she designed and get a patent for the board game “The Landlord’s Game” which was supposed to prove the validity of the theory and to propose the introduction of a single federal tax based on land ownership to discourage speculation and encourage equal opportunity. In Magie’s words the game was to be a “a practical demonstration of the present system of land-grabbing with all its usual outcomes and consequences. It might well have been called the ‘Game of Life,’ as it contains all the elements of success and failure in the real world” The original game featured a board with the familiar circuit of increasingly pricey neighborhoods crossed with railroads and utilities. The corners read “Go to Jail“, “Public Park” and the jail itself. The fourth corner included a drawing of the globe encircled by the words “Labor Upon Mother Earth Produces Wages.” -- source link