digitalesse
Monopoly
I just did an unofficial international poll.
The American loathed it:
I always landed on my brother’s properties, I’d be lying on the floor going “why are you doing this to me? You must hate me. Other families do fun things. I will die before this game ends.â€
The Canadian woman loved it:
We’d play it during the long evenings up at the cottage, there was no TV, it was all “Oh Yes! I pass GO. I get $200†it was so much fun.
The Australian guy grinned at me. He used to cheat:
I was the bank, amazingly I just never seemed to run out of money, somehow I always pulled that ‘Get out of Jail Free’ card.
From Sydney to Saskatoon we’d play a game which was apparently designed to teach us all about the dangers of allowing too much power to be held by monopolies. To us it was only a game.
Now we’re grown up. People in the world’s major cities are protesting about corporate influence on government policies, about the fact that banks weren’t held legally accountable for the global financial crisis, about how the rich get richer and the poor don’t. In the middle of all this somebody, maybe that Banksy guy, maybe not, has plonked a messed up Monopoly board in the heart of a protest in London.
Funny old game isn’t it?
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