Monopoly by CeeJay

When I was a child, cold winter Saturdays like this one were often spent in the tower of a Victorian mansion that had been made into four apartments. My best friend’s family lived in the apartment on the top floor that used to be the attic of the mansion. My family lived in the duplex in the ally behind the apartments, where the stable for the mansion once stood. The kids in our neighborhood spent their 10 - 25 cent weekly allowance on Coke, pretzel sticks, and penny candy. Then we settled in around a big table and enjoyed this game of high finance that was developed during the great depression. The game ended hours later when one of us had accumulated most of the property and wealth and someone else went bankrupt paying the rent required for landing on the other’s property full of hotels.The Victorian mansion was a left over from the Gilded Age of American history, that period after the Civil War when the robber barons who had accumulated wealth from railroads, war production and oil flaunted it by building extravagant dwellings while those who produced the goods in their factories and built the rails for the trains lived lives of quiet desperation in tenements. The game was developed during the great depression, when the country reaped the result of years of over extended credit, unbridled greed, and the consolidation of wealth. So it seemed fitting that I was playing Monopoly in a made over Victorian mansion, though I had no clue about the history of either as I munched on my pretzels and drank my Coke.

Both the Gilded Age and the Jazz Age that preceded the worst economic depression in history were periods of unprecedented corporate growth. An increasingly smaller percentage of the population controlled not only business, but through their wealth also influenced the political process to their advantage. These were times when the gap in the distribution of wealth between workers and those who owned the means of production increased dramatically. Immigration played its part as well, negatively impacting wages. Government aided and protected corporate monopolies with favorable legislation and government contracts, first for the railroads and then for war production. Large corporations drove small businesses out of the market place because they developed trusts and were able to lower prices due to purchasing advantage, advertising and the reach of their influence. There was also a rapid expansion of technology that changed the character of the workplace and increased trade. The new products available, promoted by the newly developed mass advertising industry, increased consumer demand. Expanded credit through installment buying enabled wage earners to promise away future earnings in exchange for the latest gadgets. After prohibition was passed, a thriving underground economy developed around illegal alcohol, and crime increased as gangs fought to control it. Sound familiar? Government alliance with corporate interests, illegal trade in drugs, easy credit, aggressive marketing, rapid technological advances that increased demand for new products and made huge changes in the workplace, cheap labor due to immigration, stock market and land speculation by those hoping to get rich quick. The editorial cartoons from the period have as much relevance today as they did back then as this cartoon by Frank Beard published in the Ram’s Horn depicts.

The pig could easily be Wal-Mart , one of the major oil conglomerates, Microsoft …. The interesting thing about Monopoly the game or monopoly in life is that money begets more money, and in the end, those who unfortunately did not get a good start in the game end up bankrupt. As long as the rules of the game favor the accumulation of wealth through rent, unregulated usury, and political favors bought with campaign contributions and corruption, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer until the whole system collapses in an economic crisis. Interestingly enough, the Jewish law recognized the inherent fallibility in this system by resetting the economic game every fifty years with the year of jubilee. On the year of jubilee all who had sold themselves into slavery were set free, and all land that had been sold reverted to its original owner. This meant that no Israelite could ever be in permanent slavery; nor could any Israelite permanently lose his inheritance.

I was mildly amused to find the following statement on John McCain’s web site, “McCain is a partisan Republican in the mold of Theodore Roosevelt. And, like T.R., he is not a prisoner of doctrinaire thinking or poisonous hyperpartisan politics.” McCain has often referred to Theodore Roosevelt as his hero along with Ronald Regan, but he fails to see that the two presidents would have been diametrically opposed to each other in the area of economics. But of course, McCain has already admitted that economics is not his strong suit. Well to borrow part of a phrase from Senator Lloyd Bentsen (one best cite any borrowing of phrases or Hillary will suggest we be sued for plagiarism), all I have to say to McCain is, “Senator, you’re no Teddy Roosevelt”. In fact, you and Teddy wouldn’t agree at all on how to deal with the economic issues we face today. Perhaps reading some of Teddy’s speeches would enlighten you on the topic of economics as well as his perspective on such topics as the inheritance tax and the need for progressive taxation to redistribute wealth.

Just a couple quotes to illustrate the point:

“Again, the national government must in some form exercise supervision over corporations engaged in interstate business-and all large corporations engaged in interstate business-whether by license or otherwise, so as to permit us to deal with the far reaching evils of overcapitalization.”

“I stand for the adequate control, the real control, of all big business, and especially of all monopolistic big business where it proves unwise or impossible to break up."

“I believe in a protective tariff, but I believe in it as a principle, approached from the standpoint of the interests of the whole people, and not as a bundle of preferences to be given to favored individuals. In my opinion, the American people favor the principle of a protective tariff, but they desire such a tariff to be established primarily in the interests of the wage-worker and the consumer.”

"No man should receive a dollar unless that dollar has been fairly earned. Every dollar received should represent a dollar's worth of service rendered - not gambling in stocks, but service rendered. The really big fortune, the swollen fortune, by the mere fact of its size acquires qualities which differentiate it in kind as well as in degree from what is possessed by men of relatively small means. Therefore, I believe in a graduated income tax on big fortunes, and in another tax which is far more easily collected and far more effective - a graduated inheritance tax on big fortunes, properly safeguarded against evasion and increasing rapidly in amount with the size of the estate.”- August 31, 1910.

In this quote, Teddy sounds a lot more like one of the Democrats than he does McCain,

“This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in if it is not a reasonably good place for all of us to live in. When I plead the cause of the crippled brakeman on a railway, of the overworked girl in a factory, of the stunted child toiling at inhuman labor, or all who work excessively or in unhealthy surroundings, of the family dwelling in the squalor of a noisome tenement, of the worn out farmer in regions where the farms are worn our also; when I protest against the unfair profits of unscrupulous and conscienceless men, or against the greedy exploitation of the helpless by the beneficiaries of privilege — in all these case I am not only fighting for the weak, I am also fighting for the strong. The sons of all of us will pay in the future if we of the present do not do justice in the present. If the fathers amuse others to eat bitter bread, the teeth of their own sons shall be set on edge. Our cause is the cause of justice for all, in the interest of all. Surely there was never a more noble cause; surely there was never a cause in which it was better worth while to spend and be spent. "

In fact, McCain had better not ally himself too closely with our 26^th president because it will certainly upset his economically conservative base, and he has already upset the social conservatives. Shucks, McCain might actually agree with Teddy on the taxes. I mean, he voted against the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy before he decided that it was a better idea to extend them. Of course, he hadn’t paid enough attention to the moaning and groaning from the “over taxed” wealthy Republicans and was forced to flip flop. Perhaps this cartoon from the gilded age Rams Horn would enlighten him about the burden of rich plutocrats.

The caption says, “Says plutocrat, 'Your burden is no heavier than mine. Look at the taxes I am carrying'." Even some conservative Republicans have noticed that McCain might be a progressive teddy bear in a Republican disguise. If he isn’t covering up his progressive tendencies to appease his pro-corporate base, and he truly is trying to be a trickle down, free trade, deregulation Republican AND a progressive reformer at the same time, he may perish in a sort of schizophrenic breakdown before the campaign season is over.