Target

Monopoly has been causing chaos, tearing down familial relationships for decades. So it makes perfect sense that Monopoly is taking its brand values of frustration, anger and rage to the online discourse.

The source of anger this time round: Monopoly Socialism, a game that's described on Target as "a hilarious adult twist on classic Monopoly gameplay."

A lengthy (and informative) thread on Twitter by historian Nick Kapur has created a live debate on Monopoly Socialism. Is this a hilarious satire of socialist principles or is it a misrepresentation that makes a mockery of what Monopoly was supposed be satirizing to begin with?

I bought a copy of Hasbro's mean-spirited and woefully ill-informed "MONOPOLY: SOCIALISM" board game so you don't have to - a thread 1/ pic.twitter.com/YhZWDjkAnj — Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 21, 2019

As Kapur explains, features of Monopoly Socialism include a reduced $50 living wage for "passing go" (Monopoly usually gives you $200 for passing go, so the joke is socialism makes us poorer). It also allows you to steal resources as a collective from players who are deemed to be doing too well in the game.

Likewise, because "socialism" allegedly hates people doing well, a card lets you confiscate wealth from someone with some sort of vote. But then, rather than actually redistributing that wealth to those less well off, the wealth is simply destroyed and removed from the game. 15/ pic.twitter.com/6WwHZLKppG — Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 21, 2019



"I can't quite figure out who the target audience of this game is," said Kapur. "It would be as if other themed 'Monopoly' games attempted to viciously mock the theme, like if Dog Monopoly mocked dogs and dog owners, or Star Wars monopoly mocked Star Wars fans for being nerds."

Kapur's thread has raised a huge amount of online discussion. Even US Republican Senator Ted Cruz got involved.

Why to Leftie academics so fear pointing out the manifest failures of socialism? https://t.co/Z2CRzffUo0 — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) August 22, 2019

And he had some of his own ideas for future Monopoly games.

We could do the East Germany edition: you build a wall across your living room; put all the food, technology & prosperity on one side; erect machine guns on the wall; and shoot anybody who tries to get to the West. 5/x — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) August 22, 2019

Or we could do the University edition: you imagine a magic money tree; you give everything free to anybody who wants it; nobody works, studies, or innovates; and everybody gets an A! 6/x — Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) August 22, 2019

But most online discussion mocked Monopoly Socialism for directly contradicting the purpose of the original game, initially called "The Landlord's Game," which was designed to promote the theories of Henry George, an economist who believed people should own the value of the goods they produced and that land should be "common property."

It’s sort of weird that Hasbro has a version of Monopoly trying to mock socialism considering that the capitalist goal of the original game is to bankrupt your friends and take all their stuff https://t.co/S1fpXern9r — maple cocaine (@maplecocaine) August 22, 2019

lmao Hasbro really let an extremely mad Boomer design an official Monopoly Socialism game https://t.co/lNO4amGjOD — fired dailykos blogger (@lib_crusher) August 21, 2019

Some people thought it wasn't worth getting upset about.

i bought a copy of hasbro's socialism monopoly and had a good time... i think you need some friends, man. screaming into the void about a new board game you can't play has gotta be damaging to your psyche https://t.co/W4ocTaeOE2 — Alexander Nicholi 🧧 (@nicholatian) August 23, 2019

Everything about this is hilarious - the “Monopoly: Socialism” game, the guy being offended by it, and Ted Cruz leaping to its defense.



Must be 2019. https://t.co/JJBMDAmKij — Jeremy Simmons (@jmartinsimmons) August 23, 2019

This isn't the first time Hasbro has tried to use its Monopoly brand to stir up controversy. Back in 2018 it released Monopoly for Millennials, a game with the tagline "forget real estate. You can't afford it anyway."

Hasbro

Hasbro didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.