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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 6697376" data-attributes="member: 4937">Well, first of all 'capitalism' is a communist term of art... so yeah, anytime you read a primer on 'capitalism', you would be basically reading Marxism.  Actual 'capitalists' always refer to an 'open market' or a 'free market', and refer to themselves as Liberals Economists.  But, that's a whole other story.   The game is actually Georgist in its philosophical roots, which is another economic system (like 'Marxism' for example) you may not have heard of.  In his day, Henry George was as famous as Karl Marx, and ironically there are a whole lot more nations with economic systems influenced by George around today (though no pure 'Georgists', he was a huge influence on libertarianism in the US and Liberal Socialism in Europe) than by Marx.It's not really important the details, but Georgism unlike Marxism was/is a Liberal economic system intended to set up a governing system that would tend to lead toward conditions similar to those envisioned by the original Liberal Economists like Adam Smith and John Locke.  Georgism wasn't a criticism of Liberal Economics as it was an attempt at reform of government - chiefly tax policy - so that the market would stop being distorted by a lot of things government was doing that was in Henry George's mind contributing to income inequality.  Georges was actually a big fan of Locke and Smith, and Marx HATED him.If you've read Smith, the greatest evil that a person can do in what you are calling 'capitalism' is rent seeking.  'Rent Seeking' is like the cardinal sin of 'capitalism' (if capitalism wasn't a communist theory and if capitalism actually had sins).  Rent Seeking is deliberate market distortion.  Rent Seekers attempt to corner a local market in a commodity for the purpose of raising the prices on it, taking advantage of limitations of space time to remove the assumption of 'many sellers' from the market.  The only thing that is about as bad as Rent Seeking, is Monopolies, which are sort of the end goal of rent seekers.  'Capitalists' or whatever you want to call them hate Rent Seekers about as much as communists hate the means of production being in private hands.  Smith, if you'll recall, was trying to explain why some nations became wealthier than others, and one of his theories on how a nation could lose its way was that it wealthier members would be consumed with rent seeking.This actually shows up in a lot of literature of the period.  For example, it's one of the chief political subtexts of Dicken's 'The Christmas Carol'.  Scrooge uses leverage to put out of business the kind hearted generous 'capitalist' Mr. Fezzywig, who gave Scrooge his first job, and then proceeds to become a pure rent seeker, cornering markets in commodities like grain and then raising the prices because he is the only seller.  The audience is supposed to immediately recognize this, sort of like a modern villain will be made to spout racist opinions so the audience will immediately know him for a villain - "Rent seeker!  Boo!!!".Because there is no actual productive activity in Monopoly, no way to beat anyone else by out producing them or selling a better product or controlling your costs of production or anything else, there isn't any thing going on that is 'capitalism' even by the original Marxist definition.Well, I guess its maker would be very unhappy.  She appears to have considered it completely obvious that you weren't supposed to sympathize with the 'greedy SOB's'.  Of course, part of the problem may be that Parker Brothers reskinned the maker's original game which was entitled 'The Landlord's Game' when they made Monopoly.  However, I've never really studied the original art of the board or the box and the accompanying discussion.However, if you think the moral of the game is 'Greed is Good' and you feel its actually encouraging one to unconsciously learn that lesson, I guess I'm going to have to concede that the game Monopoly is evil.</blockquote>

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