Competition: late-stage capitalism
Competition under capitalism: there are no winners I’ve been invited to talk about competition, so I’m going to talk about one of the most competitive games of all time: Monopoly. This is also my least favourite board game, and one that I have never won. In the modern version of Monopoly, all of the spoils go to the victor. But Monopoly wasn’t always played this way. The original creator, Elizabeth Magie, intended for people to play two rounds of the game: one in which players try to financially destroy each other, and another in which players share the wealth and ‘win’ by helping the least well-off player gain a larger share of the market. This game was supposed to reveal the evils of capitalism, but it was rebranded by Parker Brothers as a capitalist free-for-all. Now it’s used to teach children that it’s okay to bankrupt everyone you know as long as you played by the rules. Now, even the Parker Brothers version of Monopoly is much fairer than actual capitalism. If Monopoly were based on real capitalism, then people wouldn’t be dealt an equal amount of money at the start of the game. The bank would give White players 8 times more starting wealth than Black players and 5 times more starting wealth than Hispanic players. It would give men 3 times more wealth than women. It wouldn’t give children any money: they would have to ask their parents for an allowance. The ‘Chance’ cards wouldn’t say things like, “Go to jail” and “Get out of jail free”; they would say things like, “Go to jail for 10 turns if you’re White and 12 turns if you’re Black,” or “Surprise! You’re under a conservatorship: give all of your money to the nearest cisgender man and don’t play again until he gives you permission.” (Free Britney). Community Chest wouldn’t say things like, “Doctor’s fee: pay $50,” or “Pay school tax of $150”; it would say things like, “You’ve just gone medically bankrupt, give all of your money to United Healthcare,” and “Welcome to the school-to-prison pipeline, go directly to jail.” If Monopoly were realistic, then the winner wouldn’t just collect their money and shake hands with their opponents: They would buy a ticket to mars and light the board on fire, burning everything to the ground. The tragic thing about Monopoly is that there are no winners, there are only exploitative landlords and exploited tenants. No one who goes bankrupt likes the monopolist, any more than exploited Amazon workers like Jeff Bezos, or any other bloodthirsty capitalist SpaceBro. And the bad news is that it’s not getting any better: this is late-stage capitalism; it’s as capitalist as it’s going to get. Corporations have driven humanity to the brink of extinction, polluted every ecosystem on earth, and decimated the world’s biodiversity. Are you having fun yet? Do you want to keep playing this game? Or do you think it might be time to give the socialist version a chance?
