The game was invented to protest American wealthy owners: Who invented Monopoly and how?

Perhaps the most popular of the board games that appeal to all tastes and age groups is Monopoly. Monopoly, where both the winner and the loser have a lot of fun, gives everyone the chance to become a real estate tycoon, even in the game.

Monopoly, released by a company called Parker Brothers on February 7, 1935, is described as the most-played commercial board game today. Monopoly was developed by left-wing activist Elizabeth Magie to protest capitalism. Magie believed that capitalism, which allows a lucky few to own most of the wealth, was not a system conducive to human dignity. To explain this belief to large audiences, he designed a game called "The Host".

Monopoly is a multiplayer economics-themed board game. In the game, players roll two dice to move around the game board, buying and trading properties and developing them with houses and hotels. Players collect rent from their opponents and aim to drive them into bankruptcy. Money can also be gained or lost through Chance and Community Chest cards and tax squares.

Magie developed the game as a protest against American wealthy people. Magie designed his play inspired by the theories of economist and politician Henry George. George argued that the tax burden should be shifted from the poor to rich landowners. George argued that natural resources, opportunities, and most importantly land, should be shared equally by all members of society. Magie's game consisted of two modules: In the first, the goal was to increase the welfare of all players; The goal of the second was for one of the players to establish a “monopoly” and drive their competitors into bankruptcy. Magie's goal was to make the person who plays these two modules one after the other understand the idea that the right thing for humanity is to share wealth. Magie patented his game called "The Landlord" in 1903.

Elizabeth J. Magie Phillips (née Magie; May 9, 1866 – March 2, 1948) was an American game designer, writer, feminist, and Georgist. She invented The Landlord's Game, the precursor to Monopoly, to illustrate teachings of the progressive era economist Henry George.

Magie's game "The Host" is very popular in the northeastern states of the United States. The “Host” game was a fairly new idea in that it involved interacting with opponents both socially and competitively. Magie's board game not only inspired Monopoly, the most popular game of all time in the United States; It was an entertainment tool that showed the value of sharing wealth and the harms of monopolization.

Harvard, Columbia, and University of Pennsylvania students and left-leaning middle-class families embraced the game. 30 years after Magie created the "Household" game in 1903, the 'Parkers Brothers company published a modified version of it under the name 'Monopoly'. Charles Darrow stated that he designed the game in the basement of his house and claimed that the idea belonged to him.

Magie disputed this, stating that he had earned only $500 from the game of his own creation and that he had no interest in the Monopoly name. Charles Darrow, who saw one of the copies of the game, made a few changes to the game 'The Landlord' in the 1930s and sold the production rights of the game to the company called Parker Brothers as if he had created the game himself. Exactly 30 years after this sale, which made Darrow a millionaire, Parker Brothers learned that the real owner of the game was Magie.

As a result, the game that Magie designed to show that capitalism was wrong fell victim to capitalism. While “The Landlord” earned millions for the people who stole his idea, it only earned Magie $500!

-----------------------------

How Monopoly Inventor Elizabeth Magie Lost Her Game

A Story of Corporate Greed, Misogyny, and Patent Office Incompetence

https://wednesdayswomen.com/how-monopoly-inventor-elizabeth-magie-lost-her-game/