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How Monopoly Became America’s Cruellest Board Game | The New Yorker

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In “Ruthless: The Secret History of Monopoly,” we learn how a game meant to critique capitalism came to embody it.

Save this story Save this story In a recent memoir , the actor Matthew Perry, of “Friends,” reveals that his parents spent the hours before his birth playing the board game Monopoly. It was an unhappy marriage, Perry writes, and they divorced when he was a baby. Monopoly probably wasn’t responsible, but it can’t have helped. Most aficionados agree that Monopoly, if not a bad game, is at the very least designed to embitter its players. The rules are straightforward. Players take turns moving their respective token around a square board. Each tile represents a major street or district in a real-

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