Concerning pawns and corporate theft

*
Hasbro Corp., heir to the Parker Brothers board game portfolio, was in the news this week for a group-participation publicity stunt having the goal of stimulating sales of back stock and endless permutations of new, special-edition merchandise to shut-ins.

If I cared about this, I'd say that cats do not belong on the Monopoly board. Prowling the estate to ambush rodents and squirrels, yes. Purring in your grandmother's lap, swaddled in her paisley shawl, sure. (On YouTube? Hell no!) I'll interrupt myself by adding that the Monopoly board is no place for a Scotty dog, either. And, too, I'm not so partial to the battleship. The animal kingdom should be represented on the board by, say, a lead-based vulture and a water moccasin.

Predictably, intrepid journalist types will eat up an "exciting campaign" like this, and in the current particular case may even pretend to look for deeper social meaning:

Consider the kitty cat’s victory as both an expression of what economics should really be about – supporting our ability to do what the heck we want with our time – and as a vote of confidence in our national need to relax a bit.

True. Economics should really be about doing "what the heck we want". For instance, packing a Glock 17 in a tavern, or not paying any taxes to support the amenities of US citizenship, or paying your lawmaker's campaign committee to help make sure minorities and old people can't vote in the next election.

Monopoly is a game that transforms bloodthirsty, exploitative conduct into cute fun. And a good time is had by all! (Boomp boomp!) The domestic clothes-pressing iron has, on at least one documented occasion, been used as a weapon of cold-blooded murder (by a killer cartoonist!). And so, both as a symbol of the forced domestication of modern females and the weaponization of consumerism, the iron befits the Monopoly board well, being equally at home on Baltic Avenue, Boardwalk, or in Jail.

Personally, I think there's a much more fascinating story about Monopoly that isn't widely known. We could argue that an economic monopoly is corporate theft through application of The Law Of The Jungle. But one author argues with dead certainty that the board game Monopoly is theft---that is, it became private "intellectual property" through an act of theft from the public domain.

According to this outstanding article I read in Harper's a few months ago, called "Monopoly is Theft," the "official" history of the game began in 1933, "invented" by "an unemployed steam-radiator repairman and part-time dog walker" named Charles Darrow. It's a stirring saga of an irrepressible entrepreneur and a scrappy-but-failing board game company, except (as author Christopher Ketcham informs us) it's not true. One obvious problem with the corporate history of Monopoly is that the game had already been around for 30 years, under a different name---The Landlord's Game---but very similar design:

The game’s true origins, however, go unmentioned in the official literature. Three decades before Darrow’s patent, in 1903, a Maryland actress named Lizzie Magie created a proto-Monopoly as a tool for teaching the philosophy of Henry George, a nineteenth-century writer who had popularized the notion that no single person could claim to “own” land. 

Yes, ladies and gentlemen: Monopoly began life as an "open source" educational tool for teaching people the economic philosophy of a 19th century socialist! And the objective of the game was to thwart the monopolist, not to become one. Then the game was shoplifted from the public domain by Depression-era capitalists, and eventually mutated into such lucrative niche varietals as "University of Illinois Monopoly" and "Rockopoly". The article is quite long, but really informative and captivating if you have any interest in economics, intellectual property law, or American history. I definitely recommend printing the article out, in full, preferably on your company's laser printer.

Image retrieved from http://www.slowfamilyonline.com/tag/landlords-game/, reproduced here for noncommercial commentary, critical discussion, and educational purposes.