How Monopoly informs academia and economics, even when it's not obvious

By Thomas Michael Mueller, Maître de conférence HDR en histoire de la pensée économique à l'Université Paris 8, Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain)

At the top hat’s turn to roll, the dice land on ‘Chance’ and it’s a one-way ticket to Mayfair. Aged just ten years old, I won my first game of Monopoly, but I strangely didn’t feel a sense of joy. I was rich, very rich indeed. But I was the sole proprietor of the houses, hotels and lots left behind by a fictional society of which I was the last remaining survivor.

Perhaps even back then, I suspected that the true lesson of Monopoly was that capitalism (in its most radical form) would lead most of us either to solitude, if we were lucky, or to bankruptcy, if we weren’t.

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