WorldCity Business Magazine

A new, updated Monopoly is needed

by Ken Roberts

During the height of the Great Depression in the United States, Charles Darrow invented a game called Monopoly.

A game celebrating capitalism might not seem so odd today, some 200 million copies, 500 million players and 26 languages later, but during the 1930s, it must have seemed plenty odd to some.

Capitalism, after all, was reeling, was on its heels. Socialism was ascendant.

With record numbers unemployed, including Darrow himself, and with the stock market having taken its famous 1929 bath, it is no wonder that Parker Bros., first rejected the idea.

Today, in a globalizing world, we need a new Monopoly. A different Monopoly. Monopoly celebrates one player winning by taking all the money and all the property. It’s a great kids’ game for all it teaches about math, calculated risk, the luck we sometimes get in the roll of the dice.

But for too many, in this country and abroad, Monopoly represents an oversimplified view of how they see U.S. capitalism, or multinational capitalism, and particularly globalization.

It’s an end-sum game not a win-win game, in their minds. It is Monopoly.

But the truth is far different. The truth is that globalization, free-market economies and technological advances are opening a formerly closed world to people all over the world.

It’s not just that there are more cell phones in China today than in the United States. It’s not just that India is mastering the call center business and software engineering. It’s not just that Argentines have become web wonders, showing a creative flair for design that is exportable to the world.

It is also U.S. citizens spending far less on almost everything and having access to far, far more than ever before. In our homes, we have high-speed internet access, multiple televisions, multiple computers, MP3 players, and remarkably inexpensive calculators and clothing. The list goes on and on.

The United States is the biggest winner of all from globalization.

Not uniformly and not always, but it generally benefits people willing to work hard, people willing to create and invent. It benefits people willing to take calculated risk, willing to roll the dice. People willing to lift themselves up as immigrants have done in this country for more than 200 years. As my parents did. Perhaps yours too, or perhaps you are doing today. While our Congress wrestles with whether a treaty with the relatively small nations of Central America and the Dominican Republic is a good idea, the business community needs to wrestle with this:

How do we change the mind-set of those opposed to opening doors, opening borders and opening opportunities for the world? The same people who oppose treaties benefit enormously from it, from less expensive clothing, from incredible new gadgets, from better access to all sorts of entertainment and information at the click of a mouse.

We need a new Charles Darrow. We need a new game. At the very least, we need a new game plan.