The Landlord’s Game was invented in 1903 by Lizzie Magie. The game board consisted of a square track, with a row of properties around the outside that players could buy. The game board had four railroads, two utilities, a jail, and a corner named “Labor Upon Mother Earth Produces Wages,” which earned players $100 each time they passed it. The fact is, The Landlord’s Game was patented three decades before Charles Darrow “invented” Monopoly and sold it to Parker Brothers. The Landlord’s Game was intended to illustrate the social injustice created by land ownership and “rent poverty.” It also offered a solution to this injustice: players could opt to have rent from properties they owned paid into a communal pot, which would then be shared out, making things better for everyone. The great irony of the story is that when the idea was stolen by Darrow, the prosperity-for-all ideal was removed completely—and the game that went on to be played by more than one billion people ended up encouraging them to make their opponents bankrupt.

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