Salon.com > Jock O'Connell

Monopoly turns us into capitalist vultures

Sat, 09 Feb 2013 14:00:00 +0000

Monopoly has been much in the news lately—not because the Obama Administration has suddenly assumed the guise of a vigorous anti-trust cop (fat chance!), but because the toy company Hasbro is making a conspicuous change to its flagship board game. In a contest held on Facebook over the past month, Hasbro invited the public to decide the fate of one of Monopoly’s classic tokens—the little metal figurines that represent each player on the game board. After more than 10 million votes poured in from fans in 120 countries around the world, the firm announced yesterday that, by will of the people, the old flat iron would be replaced with a new token in the form of a cat.

But what does Monopoly actually mean to all those millions of voters, aside from being a perennial diversion for families forced to endure rainy summer days indoors? Last fall an article in Harper’s magazine by Christopher Ketcham examined the peculiar history of Monopoly, a game that has, over the past 110 years, been periodically repurposed to teach a number of often conflicting lessons about economics.

I sold commie posters to a future Supreme Court justice

Thu, 18 Nov 1999 17:00:00 +0000

It was about 8 o'clock on a warm, sunny evening in July. Natalia, the young woman keeping pace with me along Leningrad's Nevski Prospekt, was easily the most beautiful woman on either side of the Urals. An associate something-or-other at the Smolny Institute, the Communist Party's local headquarters, she bore a striking resemblance to Julie Christie. But, alas, Natalia's pout was distorted by genuine anger. It was 1969, and she was holding me personally responsible for the war in Vietnam.

Not that I, a 21-year-old American college student, had much to do with the war effort. As even a casual perusal of the files of the Selective Service System will reveal, I sought to distance myself from both the war and the military as far and as fast as the torn ACL in my right knee would carry me. Besides, I had protested, I protested. But none of this mattered a whit to Comrade Natalia. This was her moment to defend the cause of international communism while practicing her English. So as any hopes faded that she might prove a deliciously corruptible Ninotchka, I looked for a path of retreat to beat.