do you ever just really think about monopoly the hit board game

and how all of the rules we've all memorized from terrible childhood game nights are vicious commentary

like how you can just buy your way out of prison

I think about it so much

it always fucks me up that apparently the way the game is intended to be played is that you play another round with fairer rules

oh

I didn't know that part

which is actually more fun

rent doubles on a color set because you no longer have any competition

instead of just the complete capitalism misery slog being the entire thing

and how this board game that was designed initially as an anti-capitalism exercise and an introduction to Georgism has become a massive capitalist commodity

also it was designed by a woman and then stolen and monetized by a man because of course it was

also how the last two thirds of any game of monopoly are one or two people gradually benefiting from everyone else's slow and miserable death and pretty much everyone agrees it isn't fun for anyone but we as a society refuse to stop playing it

it's a good social commentary if you think about it. the game straight up isn't fun for the losers but they continue playing because maybe later (in another game) THEY'LL be the winners making money and having fun

which matches very nicely to all Americans thinking of themselves as temporarily displaced millionaires so we gotta protect the rich and be exploited so that if they make it big one day they'll have all that

Or how a lot of the rules we play by such as free parking giving you money is optional rules and made a sloggish game even longer. The bank is suppose to run out of money eventually.

yeah a lot of people play by house rules just because everyone thinks they know the rules to monopoly but they actually don't

like, if you land on a property and don't buy it, it goes up for auction

i've never once played a game of monopoly where we actually auctioned anything

but that's how you're supposed to do it!!

and that means the game goes faster because properties get bought up quicker

Monopoly originally had a strict time limit, but one of the first major rules changes made by various quakers after the Georgists lost control was to remove the time limit, along with not auctioning all properties.

stories conflict on if the Quaker families were opposed to auctions or opposed to noise. Either way, they wanted a longer game so there would simply be more of an evening spent playing it.

The bank can't run out of money – 'The Bank "never goes broke." If the Bank runs out of money, the Banker may issue as much as needed by writing on any ordinary paper. (in the direction of the arrow) the number of spaces indicated by the dice.'