Hasbro's New Monopoly Socialism Game Is Being Criticized

August 22, 2019 1:48 PM EDT

Just as Monopoly for Millennials was met with mixed reactions when it hit shelves last November, Hasbro’s new Monopoly Socialism game is coming up against some criticism.

In the wake of the toy company unveiling a new edition of its classic board game that parodies the concept of socialism, some detractors have taken to social media to criticize the thinking behind the spin-off.

“In the Monopoly Socialism game players move around the board working together to make a better community by managing and contributing to projects such as a no-tip vegan restaurant, an all-winners school, or a museum of co-creation. But nobody said that cooperation is easy!” the game’s description reads. “You’ll have issues with your neighbors, your DIY community projects go awry, you’re constantly voting to shake things up, and there’s always an emergency that requires dipping into the Community Fund!”

In one particularly popular Twitter thread that was posted on Wednesday, user Nick Kapur slammed the game — which features the tagline “Winning is for capitalists” — as “mean-spirited” and “woefully ill-informed.” He then dives into an in-depth breakdown of numerous aspects of the game — including jokes about universal healthcare, environmentalism and voting — that he feels miss the mark on socialism.

See the full thread below.

From the tagline "Winning is for capitalists" we can see right away that this game is not going to be friendly to whatever it deems "socialism" to be.

Because as we all know "socialists" never play sports or participate in any sort of competitive activity, like board games. 2/
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 21, 2019

The player tokens include a typewriter, an old-timey phone, a pocket watch, a phonograph, and a CRT television set, presumably because "socialism" is so incredibly outdated? 4/ pic.twitter.com/8R9HoiGO5H
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 21, 2019

There are also tons of references to health food and veganism, despite the lack of any clear connection to socialism, apparently because what they share in common is that they are odious things that are fun to mock. 6/ pic.twitter.com/tKzkpQWZ36
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 21, 2019

It goes without saying that this game is entirely uninterested in trying to understand what socialism actually is and how it might function. 8/
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 21, 2019

But the community fund is gleefully and deliberately designed to be constantly running out of money. At this point, the only way to fill it back up and keep the game going is for players to donate money to it voluntarily. 10/
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 21, 2019

And then confusedly, when it's time to pay taxes, the taxes do not go into the community fund, but rather are paid *from* the community fund to a private bank! 12/ pic.twitter.com/3TcDI0t882
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 21, 2019

But then when the minimum wage is increased, this wage doesn't actually increase, but instead, once again for no reason the community fund pays money to a private bank. 14/ pic.twitter.com/8LBOk00laB
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 21, 2019

Voting is also mocked. Maybe because voting creates market uncertainty for big banks and monopoly capitalists from whose perspective this game was apparently designed? Voting is portrayed as serving mainly to "shake things up" and something socialists are "constantly" doing. 16/ pic.twitter.com/TYlqGtCJ6p
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 21, 2019

But then the game was stolen by a male capitalist, made even more brutally and unironically captitalist, and sold to Parker Brothers, who later abused the legal system to get around copyright laws in a classic case of...capitalist rent-seeking. 18/https://t.co/ceOA68yPUL
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 21, 2019

I guess maybe in this golden age of "Euro-style" board games like Catan, nobody under 60 plays "Monopoly" anymore? Maybe Hasbro actually knows its audience, and that audience is just hate-filled Boomers raised during the Cold War and triggered by whatever people under 40 do? 20/ pic.twitter.com/DLZtZEaJOY
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 21, 2019

Judging by this other Hasbro Monopoly game called "Monopoly for Millennials," the answers to these questions are yes and yes. 21/https://t.co/vOUKadboLI
— Nick Kapur (@nick_kapur) August 21, 2019

Viral Thread Gets Very Deep Into Hasbro’s New Socialism-Themed Monopoly Game

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