MONOPOLYGATE

by Ralph Anspach

MONOPOLYGATEDuring a David and Goliath Battle, the Inventor of the Anti-Monopoly® Game Uncovers the Secret History of Monopoly® This is a tale right out of today's headlines about corporate greed and corruption in which life imitates art. A Professor invents the Anti-Monopoly® game but is sideswiped by a trademark infringement suit by the producers of Monopoly® . He is banned from the market for ten years and 40,000 of his games are buried in a garbage dump. He fights on and finally wins at the Supreme Court and his game is now a world-wide bestseller. To counter the big business onslaught, he investigates the background of Monopoly. He discovers that the universally accepted story behind this world-wide emblem of capitalism is a fantasy fabricated to satisfy corporate greed. The true story is validated by the courts. Monopoly was not invented by the legendary hero of entrepreneurship, Charles Darrow, but by a populist woman named Elizabeth Magie Phillips who thought of it as a tongue-in-cheek indictment of monopoly capitalism. Her game was improved and spread in the public domain throughout the Eastern United States by opponents of monopoly capitalism. They thought that players would understand that they became rich by chiseling and price gouging the public. The folk game then traveled to Atlantic City where a group of Quaker teachers transformed it into the almost exact game now played. An acquaintance of theirs, Charles Darrow, copied the game surreptitiously and placed it with Parker Brothers. This company then was outsold by another publication of the folk game. To get rid of the competition and monopolize Monopoly® , it had Darrow get a fraudulent invention patent. To cover up the scheme, it turned him into a super inventor whose ingenuity raised him from rags to riches. As part of a cover up, Phillips and the Quakers were airbrushed out of history. Anspach tells his dramatic story with humor and suspense. The Boston Globe wrote the book “belongs in every summer cottage that now contains a game of Monopoly (or Anti-Monopoly).”� It added that it also “illuminates key elements of American business history, from the populism of the 1880s”� to now. About the AuthorRalph Anspach is a Professor Emeritus of Economics who taught at San Francisco State University and is also the author of two books and many professional articles. He had a harrowing childhood in Hitler's Germany and then soldiered during World War II with the American army in the Philippines and fought with the army of Israel during its war of independence. He was also a university student in Paris, construction worker in Morocco, secret code clerk with the U.S. army in Germany, and an exchange professor in Indonesia.Anspach 33 5 65 24 33 98; antimonopoly@juno.com.

254 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 1, 2007