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Except the way the game is played doesn't implement Georgism, or am I not getting it right? It goes buy once, seek rent forever.

If Monopoly was Georgism you'd be paying taxes representing the potential value of your color/land e.g. every lap, regardless of if you put a bunch of hotels on there or not, or if someone landed on it or not.



That's the point, the game is pointing out the flaws of the current system.


I know, except the parent was saying Monopoly is like Georgism, which it isn't.


Historically it was, according to the comment above by BirdieNZ:

The original Landlord's Game has two rulesets, and it switches to the Georgist ruleset when enough players agree (I think > half). The first ruleset is similar to modern Monopoly, but when enough players agree to switch because they're all getting destroyed by the top 1-2 players, then it changes to a Georgist style policy/rules.


No, they said it was Georgist. Not that the rules incorporated Georgism.


What's the nuance between Georgist and Georgism that I'm missing here causing me to misinterpret what the GP is saying?

English is not my native language but a Georgist would be a person subscribing to (or in the case of the GP, an object that implements), Georgism, or am I not seeing that right?


It's a game made by a Georgist person that doesn't implement Georgist economics in order to demonstrate how non-Georgist economics leads to monopolies.

Most people I know don't really enjoy playing Monopoly, because it quickly comes to be dominated by those who are lucky on the first few laps, and then becomes a game of slowly suffering while those same lucky people gradually win.

That's my understanding. It advocates for Georgism (for Georgist ideas) without implementing Georgism.


>Most people I know don't really enjoy playing Monopoly

It's been one of the top 10 most popular board games in the world for like a century. It's not like it's some hated game that helps to prove how hated the current system is.


You're totally right that it's popular. I'm sure that my immediate family owns at least three sets between us (god knows why) and yet, I think my statement stands true. Most people I know don't really enjoy playing Monopoly.


Just like private land ownership has been a dominant economic system since the invention of agriculture, despite its incredible negative effects.


"Just like" if we ignore the huge difference: once is a game millions of individual people willingly buy and willingly play for fun, popular among countless other readily available board game options.

The other is a system in which people are born into, it's protected by law and enforced by the police and the state, and has no readily available alternative that an individual can just opt for and use without huge co-ordinated societal and law and government restructuring.

So, kind of "Elmer Fudd is just like Darth Vader", if we ignore that one is a cartoon rabbit hunter and farmer, and the other is the feared throughout a whole galaxy enforcer of a dictatorship through his dark mystical powers, in a live action sci-fi film.


Eh, the more proximal issue is just that some people see how distorted the game is (and hate it), but most people literally do not see the issue with the game’s design.

The resulting dynamics of winner-takes-all, fuck everyone else is seen as just a natural consequence of the natural rules of the game.


A _Georgist critique_ is a critique from a Georgist perspective, same as a _Marxist analysis_ would be an analysis from a Marxist perspective. A _Georgist's critique_ would be a critique from someone who is a Georgist, but not necessarily relating to Georgeism, which is more ambiguous in this case.


The original Landlord's Game has two rulesets, and it switches to the Georgist ruleset when enough players agree (I think > half). The first ruleset is similar to modern Monopoly, but when enough players agree to switch because they're all getting destroyed by the top 1-2 players, then it changes to a Georgist style policy/rules.


Right! Now, come to think of it, why did I make that connection anyway? A long time ago, I read something whose details escaped me, along the lines that Monopoly was invented under a different name by woman, and the game being about unbridled capitalism and rent seeking was later reversal or perversion of her original concept.




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