Has Srinidhi Balakrishnan, in her excellent piece on the history of Monopoly, perhaps forgotten what was the purpose of Lizzie Magie’s original board game (“Monopoly without cash? There’s an app for that”, Opinion, FT Weekend, March 8)?
Magie’s product — The Landlord’s Game — shows how the unearned income from land tends towards monopoly ownership when using one set of rules. The other set, which obliges landowners to pay rent (land value tax), demonstrates how monopoly can be avoided.
The game neatly illustrates Henry George’s seminal work Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry in the Cause of Industrial Depressions and of Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth . . . The Remedy.
Land value tax was the remedy.
Magie, like George, was a capitalist — she sold games and other inventions. However, she allowed this one to be played for free in her community. Charles Darrow discovered it and adapted it to create the game of Monopoly which he sold to Parker Brothers.
We still have land monopoly — in Britain, 1 per cent own 70 per cent of the land — and land value tax is still the only remedy.
Carol Wilcox
Secretary, Labour Land Campaign, Christchurch, Dorset, UK
