Apparently the game Monopoly originated as the The Landlord's Game and encouraged a much different set of values than acquiring property and wealth. It was a teacher's device invented by Lizzie J. Magie that supported a tax movement led by Philadelphia-born Henry George that "proposed a single federal tax based on land ownership believing a single tax would discourage speculation and encourage equal opportunity".
"The Landlord's Game and Monopoly are very similar, except all the properties in Magie's game are rented not acquired as in Monopoly and instead of names like "Park Place" and "Marvin Gardens" one finds "Poverty Place", "Easy Street" and "Lord Blueblood's Estate". The objectives of each game are also very different. In Monopoly the idea of the game is to buy and rent or sell property so profitably that one becomes the wealthiest player and eventually monopolist. In The Landlord's Game, the object was to illustrate how (under the system of land tenure) the landlord had an advantage over other enterprisers and to show how the single tax could discourage speculation."Landlord's Game Monopoly Monopoly
Posted by vostokone