Instead of trying to build a monopoly, you try to break them up. Monopolies are not a nice thing in capitalism.ĭONOVAN: Anti-Monopoly is there to basically turn the tables on the Parker Brothers game. Patty Hearst reportedly plays a version of the game.Īnd it becomes kind of this counter-cultural icon.ĪNSPACH: The point of Anti-Monopoly was to retain all the fun of Monopoly, but at the same time, make it very clear that the monopolists are the bad guys when they play. ♪ ♪ PILON: Anti-Monopoly becomes a hit in the Bay Area. I began to think about that, and that's what happened. I tried to explain to them, "You shouldn't take it personal."Īnd I started looking for a game that would show the anti-monopoly side. He said, "Yesterday, we played Monopoly, "I won the game, and now you're such a poor loser, you're attacking my victory." It took me about four hours rather than one hour to get home.Īnd when I finally got, sat down at the dinner table, I was X-rated cussing out the oil monopolists.Īnd suddenly my eight-year-old son says, "Dad, you are a really poor loser." INTERVIEWER: Ralph, tell me about the board game that you invented, and how did it come about?ĪNSPACH: It was a very hot day, chaos on the roads. Ralph believed that monopolies were one of the major forces holding back the optimal version of American capitalism.Īnd so what better way to teach people about those complex systems than having them play and experience a board game? It's a crisis, an absolute crisis in 1973. They've just hiked up prices, there are queues at the petrol pumps, the economy is in tatters. (car horns honking) TRISTAN DONOVAN: OPEC, the Arab oil monopoly, controls the oil supply. His ideas aren't getting across, and he's frustrated, because at this point, the OPEC oil cartels are dominating headlines. He thinks that monopolies are at the root of all that is wrong in this country and create power imbalances. PILON: In the early 1970s, Ralph Anspach is an economics professor at San Francisco State University. SINGERS (on radio): ♪ KNBR, 68, it's San Francisco ♪ RADIO HOST: 24 until 11:00. There's just one problem with that story, and it's that it's not true. (laughs): Everybody lives happily ever after. They decide to sell the game, it becomes a massive bestseller, and it saves him and Parker Brothers from the brink of destruction. It's a game about property and money at a time when Americans are so desperately lacking in exactly those things.īut undeterred, he ultimately ends up at Parker Brothers. He has this big light bulb moment, this big eureka moment, and out comes Monopoly. He's unemployed, as are millions of Americans. (dice clattering) ♪ ♪ PILON: Once upon a time, in the great Great Depression, there's this man named Charles Darrow. My goal in life is to win and beat you all. (kids talking in background) Read the instructions. RAWORTH: And so it's a story that teaches us: compete, acquire, be ruthless, and you will go on to conquer the world. TOM FORSYTH: It was supposed to be a critique of capitalism, and it turned out to be a celebration of it. "You are playing a twisted version of this game." It should come with a health warning, like a packet of cigarettes. KATE RAWORTH: The dynamics written into the rules of this game were never intended to be the rules. It's not just the twists and turns, but the fact that it is a game about capitalism that was created to teach people about something completely different. I mean, this is one of the things that makes it so compelling. JAGODA: This story about Monopoly is filled with ironies. (dice clattering) BRYANT SIMON: In America, we've created a myth that capitalists like competition, but no capitalist wants competition. It's a cut-throat game: "I only win when you lose." It's not all, you know, rainbows and, and unicorns. MARY PILON: We always played Monopoly at Christmas Eve.Īs a kid, it wasn't just exciting to win at a game, but also seeing my brother get destroyed.Īs the little sister, it was, like, a very exciting feeling, if I had to be honest about it.ĮRIC ZIMMERMAN: But there's a dark side, too. So it was a very intense series of games growing up. There were always house rules that we were applying. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (dice thudding) PATRICK JAGODA: We played on vacation, and it never ended well.
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