Wednesday, September 23, 2026
You Are Being Fleeced
Monopoly began in 1904 as Elizabeth Magie's anti-landlord teaching tool with two rulesets. Watch the same dice ruin a tenant under one rule and spare everyone under the other — narrated by Kirk, Spock & Adam.
Ten things
- Monopoly began in 1904 as Elizabeth Magie's anti-landlord teaching tool with two rulesets. Watch the same dice ruin a tenant under one rule and spare everyone under the other — narrated by Kirk, Spock & Adam.
- It was patented in 1904 by Elizabeth Magie — a stenographer, writer, and Georgist — as The Landlord's Game , a tool to teach how landlords grow rich in their sleep.
- They made him rich, bought Magie's patent for $500 with no royalties, deleted the Prosperity rules, and sold the warning back to us as family fun.
- The landlord does no extra work — he owns the squares, so money climbs uphill on every unlucky roll, and compounding does the rest.
- In the 1930s Charles Darrow sold a copy of Magie's game to Parker Brothers as his own.
- Under Prosperity rules the same rent is collected — but pooled and shared back each round.
- Monopolist rules reward crushing your opponents until one player owns everything.
- The only thing that changes between them is a single rule — where the rent goes.
- It's Henry George's single tax made playable: tax the land, not the work.
- The left board produces a winner and a casualty; the right one doesn't.
Five questions
Which term completes this sourced statement? “Monopoly began in 1904 as _____ Magie's anti-landlord teaching tool with two rulesets. Watch the same dice ruin a tenant under one rule and spare everyone under the other — narrated by Kirk, Spock & Adam.”
Which term completes this sourced statement? “They made him rich, bought Magie's patent for $500 with no royalties, deleted the _____ rules, and sold the warning back to us as family fun.”
Which term completes this sourced statement? “In the 1930s Charles Darrow sold a copy of Magie's game to Parker _____ as his own.”
Which term completes this sourced statement? “_____ rules reward crushing your opponents until one player owns everything.”
Which term completes this sourced statement? “It's Henry _____'s single tax made playable: tax the land, not the work.”