Monopoly is one of the best-selling board games in history. The game's staying power may in part be because of strong American lore — the idea that anyone, with just a little bit of cash, can rise from rags to riches. Mary Pilon, author of <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/monopolists-9781620405710/">The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favorite Board Game</a>.But there's another origin story – a very different one that promotes a very different image of capitalism. (And with two sets of starkly different <a href="https://landlordsgame.info/games/lg-1906/lg-1906_egc-rules.html">rules</a>.) That story shows how a critique of capitalism grew from a seed of an idea in a rebellious young woman's mind into a game legendary for its celebration of wealth at all costs. This episode was made in collaboration with NPR's <a href="https://www.npr.org/podcasts/510333/throughline">Throughline</a>. For more about the origin story of Monopoly, listen to their original episode <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/06/29/1108728257/do-not-pass-go">Do Not Pass Go</a>. This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee, mastered by Natasha Branch, and edited by Jess Jiang. The Throughline episode was produced by Rund Abdelfatah, Ramtin Arablouei, Lawrence Wu, Laine Kaplan-Levenson, Julie Caine, Victor Yvellez, Anya Steinberg, Yolanda Sangweni, Casey Miner, Cristina Kim, Devin Katayama, and Amiri Tulloch. It was fact-checked by Kevin Volkl and mixed by Josh Newell.Subscribe to Planet Money+ in <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/podcast/290783428">Apple Podcasts</a> or at <a href="http://plus.npr.org/planetmoney">plus.npr.org/planetmoney</a>

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The story of "Monopoly" and American capitalism

NPR