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What's Wrong with Monopoly?

2016-04-05 · review / recommendation · John · 3:57 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Economics (also: Pop culture) · mode: Explainer · tags: recurring series

John reviews the Monopoly mobile app as a terrible game and argues that Monopoly's real history, invented by Elizabeth Magie and improved by a community but credited to Charles Darrow, is a story of capitalism failing rather than working.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Review of the Monopoly mobile app: a terrible game, Rich Uncle Pennybags, the desperate AI

  • ★★ John reviews the mobile version of the board game Monopoly; the description calls it part of a series of long looks at his mobile gaming habits. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ John calls Monopoly a terrible game: distressingly like contemporary life, slow then suddenly fast, mostly random yet treated as meaningful, only occasionally fun. (playful) — 00:00:10
  • ★★ John says the app adds new problems: Rich Uncle Pennybags introduces every game, and with no online play you face a weak AI that desperately proposes ludicrous trades. (playful) — 00:00:28
  • ★ John says he sometimes accepts the AI's ridiculous trades out of guilt, since winning is its only goal. (playful) — 00:00:58

00:01:23 — Monopoly's self-contradictory capitalism and its origin story: Darrow, Magie's Landlord's Game, Hasbro

  • ★★★ John says Monopoly's worst flaw is its self-contradictory take on capitalism: land and monopolies come by a roll of the dice, yet it celebrates getting rich by bankrupting opponents. — 00:01:23 · capitalism
  • ★★ John says in 1935 door-to-door salesman Charles Darrow sold Monopoly to Parker Brothers; it became hugely successful and Darrow was the first board game millionaire. — 00:01:44
  • ★★ John says Darrow's story was told as the American Dream of individual genius; a plaque honors him on Atlantic City's boardwalk and Parker Brothers prints his story with the rules. — 00:01:56
  • ★★★ John says Darrow did not invent Monopoly: thirty years earlier Elizabeth Magie invented The Landlord's Game, a more direct attack on land monopolism showing capital concentrating over time. — 00:02:12
  • ★★ John says Magie patented her game and offered it to Parker Brothers, who passed; it spread in progressive circles, was taught at Wharton, and was changed by players for decades. — 00:02:32
  • ★★ John says in 1933 Darrow played a version called Monopoly at a friend's house, asked for the rules, altered some of the design, patented it and became a millionaire. — 00:02:50

  • ★★★ John argues the tale of a genius rightly rewarded is really a woman's invention improved by thousands of players: a story of capitalism working turns out to be capitalism failing. — 00:03:01 · capitalism

    “A story of capitalism working, turns out to be a story of capitalism failing.”

  • ★★★ John says the game was really created by a community, and the free market failed to reward it, wrongly assigning most of the value to one contributor who added very little. — 00:03:16

  • ★★ John notes the app is published by Hasbro, the conglomerate that now owns Parker Brothers, which declined Magie's game and later bought Darrow's. — 00:03:26

00:03:39 — How anyone enjoyed Monopoly; verdict 2/10; sign-off

  • ★★ John says Monopoly's history is a far more interesting study of capitalism than the boring game, which he rates 2 out of 10 and does not recommend. (playful) — 00:03:46

Humor (significant)

  • John explains Monopoly: buy property, charge rent when opponents land on it. — 00:00:12

    “leads to a game that is distressingly similar to real contemporary human life.”

  • Rich Uncle Pennybags, minor in the board game, shows up in the app to introduce Monopoly — 00:00:33

    “you to Monopoly EVERY SINGLE TIME YOU PLAY.”

  • John ends up accepting the AI's absurd trades out of guilt, and can't enjoy winning. — 00:01:17

    “you feel so sorry for the sad little Artificial Intelligence kitten.”

  • None of this explains how anyone ever enjoyed Monopoly in the first place. — 00:03:44

    “I guess maybe Settlers of Catan hadn't been invented yet.”

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: capitalism · Charles Darrow · Lizzie Magie · Monopoly (game) · Monopoly mobile app reviewed by John · The Landlord's Game

Also: Works: Catan

Organizations: Hasbro · Parker Brothers · Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Concepts: American Dream · artificial intelligence · cumulative culture · free market

Places: Atlantic City, New Jersey

Characters: Rich Uncle Pennybags

Products: iPhone

Only in the description or credits: HankGames · Meredith · True Skate

Also centred on Monopoly (game): Shailene's Hair, Unfair Monopoly, and the Just World Fallacy

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