For today’s episode, Mary Pilon, author of The Monopolists, explains how Monopoly began as a Georgist teaching tool. In 1904 Lizzie Magie patented The Landlord’s Game to show what happens when land rent goes to owners instead of the community. The game spread through single tax circles for thirty years before Charles Darrow sold it to Parker Brothers as his own.
Mary Pilon is a New York Times bestselling author, an investigative journalist and an Emmy-nominated filmmaker. She was a staff reporter at The Wall Street Journal.