Monopoly: From the Landlord's Game to the RadicalxChange COST Version

The Monopoly craze re-started among our community with a tweet from RadicalxChange French Chapter in November 2020 (source), two years after the invention of COST Monopoly by RadicalxChange Foundation and 116 years after its first version.

“En 1904 le Monopoly était anticapitaliste ! Avec @RadxChange, il le redevient !”

“In 1904 Monopoly was anti-capitalist. With @RadxChange, it reverts to it!”

The History of Monopoly

From RadicalxChange French Chapter:

“Everything started with Elizabeth Magie Phillips, scenographer, who wanted to expose increasing inequalities. She decided to create and patent the game The Landlord’s Game, which will later be tweaked to become the symbol of capitalism, as explained in this documentary.”

Watch here in English:

Watch here in French:

Originally, “Lizzie” (like @glenweyl) was inspired by the progressivist ideas of Henry Georges, who believed that “the land is a common good and that citizens should act collectively, as one landlord.”

Around the world, access to housing is the result of systemic inequalities. In France, many projects have emerged, such as @qlay_io, first micro real estate platform open to all to become landlords, one square meter at a time.

The original Landlord's Game, of which the monopoly rules were only one rule set, was intended precisely to illustrate this point: https://t.co/rYV8LLmdfL. they were supposed to show how capitalism leads to zero sum dynamics and georgism fixes these.

— (((E. Glen Weyl))) (@glenweyl) November 13, 2020

The COST Monopoly

In Radical Markets, @glenweyl explores the role of the Harberger tax in housing access. Nothing better than COST monopoly to explain the role of the Harberger tax in access to housing. The COST monopoly was introduced to explain this concept via a game anybody could easily play.

“To prevent monopolization, it’s necessary to shift from a model of private property to ‘mankind’s property’ — from individual ownership to the commons.” - Nathan Chen

Read Nathan Chen’s blog post for more details on the concept and the game.

COST monopoly has been played around the world by the RxC community.

• By Colin Doughan:

  This crew played COST Monopoly last night. They loved it. Thanks! pic.twitter.com/mWXay1ZqAN

  — Colin Doughan (@colindoughan) November 13, 2020

• By Felix Schleef:

  Had a lot of fun playing my version of #COST-Monopoly with family and friends this past holiday season – you can find the rules that we used below! Let me know if you have any suggestions! @glenweyl @RadxChange @RxC_NewYorkCity @RxcSeattle pic.twitter.com/tjuMuZb18G

  — Felix Schleef (@FelixSchleef) January 12, 2019

• At the first annual RxC Conference in Detroit (compliments of @gabriellemic):

  Two different occasions playing COST “monopoly” this weekend — 1 at #decentralizedetroit (thanks @thom_ivy_1) & the other @ #RadicalxChange 🎲 the insights the insights! 😍😅🤗 pic.twitter.com/BLCT9dscYt

  — 𝚐𝒶b𝚛𝚒𝚎𝓁𝓁𝑒 / 🦋 (@gabriellemic) March 24, 2019

• At the RxC NYC chapter event:

Play it

If you want to play and comment on the game, here are the rules of the COST Monopoly:

We would love to hear from you on how to make the rules better!