Financial History Issue 113 (Spring 2015) | Page 14
MONOPOLY’S LOST
By Mary Pilon
For many years, the story of Monopoly’s
origins began with a man during the Great
Depression. However, the game actually
dates back to a left-wing woman, Lizzie
Magie, who received a patent for her Landlord’s Game back in 1904. In this excerpt
from her book The Monopolists, Mary
Pilon explains who Magie was and what
she was trying to say with her revolutionary
business board game.
Courtesy of Tom Forsyth
To Elizabeth Magie, known to her
friends as Lizzie, the problems of the new
century were so vast, the income inequalities so massive, and the monopolists so
mighty that it seemed impossible that an
unknown woman working as a stenographer stood a chance at easing society’s ills
with something as trivial as a board game.
But she had to try.
Night after night, after her work at her
Washington, DC, office was done, Lizzie
sat in her home, drawing and redrawing,
thinking and rethinking. It was the early
1900s, and she wanted her board game to
reflect her progressive political views, which
centered on the economic theories of Henry
George. A charismatic 19th century politician and economist who had passed away
just a few years before, George had been
a proponent of the “land value tax,” also
known as the “single tax.” His main tenet
was that individuals should own 100% of
what they made or created, but that everything found in nature, particularly land,
should belong to everyone. Land was not
meant to be seized, bought, sold, traded
or parceled into city blocks where people
were forced to pay exorbitant rents. Since,
however, some people did own land, they
should pay a tax for that privilege. All other
goods should remain strictly untaxed.
The Landlord’s Game, precursor
to Monopoly, was patented by
Lizzie Magie in 1904.
12 FINANCIAL HISTORY | Spring 2015 | www.MoAF.org