Lizzie Magie: The Landlord's Game

👑 The Uncredited Queen of the Board: Lizzie Magie and the Scandal Behind Monopoly

The popular history of the world's favourite board game tells a heart-warming tale of Charles Darrow, an unemployed man in the Great Depression, inventing Monopoly from scratch. The truth, revealed by decades of legal battles and investigative journalism, is a profound irony: the game was actually conceived as a radical social critique by the committed feminist and Georgist, Elizabeth J. Magie Phillips, only to have its message and credit systematically stolen and monopolized.

🔗 The Landlord's Game: A Progressive Era Crossroads

Elizabeth J. Magie Phillips (often known as Lizzie Magie), whose married name Phillips appears on her 1924 patent following her 1910 marriage, demonstrated a radical intent that transcended simple game design. Linking her invention to the era's most pressing socio-political struggles, including women's suffrage and land justice, this committed feminist famously protested women's economic subjugation by advertising herself as a "young woman American slave," illustrating that without the vote and economic independence, women were effectively property.

Her game's satirical structure directly targeted the vast wealth concentration enabled by railway, cotton, and industrial monopolies of the time. Crucially, the core philosophy of Georgism underpinning The Landlord's Game served as a scathing critique of the colonial system of land-grabbing—the same British-derived legal framework used to justify the theft of land from Native Americans. By making property monopoly the goal of one rule set (the cautionary tale), Magie sought to expose the injustice of a system built on land speculation and to advocate for a single-tax solution that benefited all citizens, not just a few "unscrupulous landlords."

📢 Suffrage, Land, and Economic Independence

Magie's role as a game designer and inventor was itself a feminist statement, as less than one percent of US patents in the early 1900s were held by women. Her belief that women were as capable as men in business and invention tied directly to her economic philosophy: she sought to empower all citizens by advocating for a system where wealth derived from personal labour was protected, while land rent (often controlled by wealthy men) was taxed for the common good.

The game's elements—railroads, utilities, and property speculation—were direct critiques of industrial excess. The railroad companies, in particular, were the quintessential monopolists of the late 19th century, controlling transport for vital goods like cotton and leveraging government grants to consolidate land. Magie’s game spaces dedicated to these monopolies were designed to show how they could ruin entire communities by dictating prices and hoarding land value.

💥 The Game's Metaphor for Colonial Theft

Henry George's philosophy, illustrated by the game, holds that land is not human-made and belongs to the community. Magie’s critique of landlords therefore extends to the foundation of American property law: the British colonial system. This system introduced the concept of private, fee simple ownership—a legal mechanism that enabled the systematic seizure of land from Native Americans.

Lizzie Magie - Inventor of Monopoly - Macomb, IL

The Monopolist game, where one player bankrupts the rest by acquiring all resources, is a powerful metaphor for this historical process: establishing a foreign legal system, systematically acquiring all properties, and eventually leading to the forced removal or financial ruin of those who cannot afford to pay the ever-increasing rents.

🎲 The Rules as a Political Argument

Magie's genius was designing two distinct sets of rules to be played on the same board:

1. The Monopoly Rules (The Warning): The set we know today, designed to make players so frustrated by the cutthroat nature and eventual bankruptcy that they would demand a fairer system. The "Go" space was labelled "Labour Upon Mother Earth Produces Wages," making a Georgist point that wealth from labour is quickly devoured by land rent.
2. The Anti-Monopolist Rules (The Solution): Under this Single-Tax (or "Prosperity") version, rent was paid into a Public Treasury instead of to a private owner. This treasury was then used for the common good, such as funding a "Free College" square. The goal was not bankruptcy, but shared prosperity, demonstrating how society could function more fairly if land value was taxed for the benefit of all.

The tragedy is that the Monopolist rules (Magie's cautionary tale) were the ones that survived, while the Anti-Monopolist rules (Magie's progressive solution) were entirely dropped, subverting a tool for social justice into an icon of cutthroat capitalism.

📜 The Theft of the Game: From Satire to Commercial Icon

Magie struggled to commercialize her game, allowing it to spread organically through progressive communities and college campuses via oral tradition. As it spread, the subtle Anti-Monopolist rules faded away, leaving only the entertaining Monopolist version.

In the 1930s, Charles Darrow played a version of the game, formalized the Atlantic City street names, and began selling it as his own invention, creating the myth of the "unemployed man inventing a hit game." Parker Brothers bought the rights from Darrow in 1935. Crucially, in securing their exclusive rights, they discovered Magie's 1904 and 1924 patents. To silence her claim and eliminate the prior patent threat, Parker Brothers bought Magie’s patents for a paltry $500, with no royalties, and heavily promoted Darrow as the sole inventor. This action effectively erased Magie’s anti-monopoly, Georgist message and rewrote history.

📰 Restoring the Truth: Pilon and the Ongoing Fight

The truth began to surface in the 1970s, when game designer Ralph Anspach, sued by Parker Brothers for his game Anti-Monopoly, used Magie's original patents as his legal defence. This ten-year battle forced the truth of Magie's prior invention into the public record.

Journalist Mary Pilon’s 2015 book, The Monopolists: Obsession, Fury, and the Scandal Behind the World's Favourite Board Game, provided the definitive account, confirming the intellectual property theft and the cynical subversion of a feminist's political message.

Despite this definitive proof, the struggle for Magie's credit continues. In a deeply ironic move in 2019, the current owner, Hasbro, released Ms. Monopoly to "celebrate women trailblazers." However, the promotion focused on a fictional niece of Mr. Monopoly rather than directly and properly honouring Elizabeth J. Magie Phillips, the real-life female inventor of the game's precursor.

Ultimately, Magie’s story is a lasting metaphor for her core argument: a system that prioritizes unchecked wealth accumulation will inevitably disenfranchise the labourer and the innovator—regardless of whether the lost credit pertains to land, profit, or a worldwide beloved board game.

Learn How to Play Macombopoly 🎲 
In Lizzie's Home Town
At Macomb Square, IL