Harry K forces his loved ones into a terrifying class conflict when he test drives these two classic board games. Will the capitalists be crushed by the mighty force of socialism? Will capitalism triumph but have to tolerate whiny lefties? Let battle commence..
Harry K and family playing Class Stuggle, yesterday
Over a long and boring weekend I tried to subject some of my family to a test between these two games to try and determine whether socialist Class Struggle or capitalist Monopoly was the best.
First a riveting game of Class Struggle. This was a bit difficult as my partner threatened to throw the game in the fire if made to have anything to do with it. So, with her kept at arm's length, the rest of us tried to figure out the rules. But perhaps I’d better explain what Class Struggle is. It’s a board game made in the seventies by some lecturer to instil socialist values into the youth. The box has a beardy Karl Marx facing off with somebody in a suit I can only guess is an American banker but who looks like Michael Portillo. The rules come in three levels of difficulty: 'basic', 'far too complicated' and 'can’t be bothered to read'. We played the basic rules. You can be a worker, a capitalist or a bit player like a student or farmer, which might conform to Marxist theory but means it’s really only a game for two people.
To start we spent ages rolling the dice to decide who was who before giving up on that rule and actually started going round the 80 squares, from Start to Revolution, each with something righteous written on them. I was the worker and, by the brilliant skill of luckily landing on the right squares, quickly gained lots of credits. The credits look like money but not enough for my dad who was a bit put out that he could not say ‘just imagine if this was real money’ which he does every time we play Monopoly.
Harry K and family playing Monopoly, yesterday
The best bit was hoping people would land on Chance cards as these were really funny; unintentionally – ‘New edition of Marx published – workers advance and intentionally; ‘Have you washed up in the last week?’ If you are a worker a yes gets you credits, if you are a capitalist a no gets you credits. Luckily I’d rinsed a cup a few days previously and got my credits. The board game is not starry eyed, the chance cards and squares include capitalists hanging anarchists and ‘workers party’ bureaucracy taking over – capitalists 3 credits. This was the funniest bit of the game as a previous socialist owner of the game had filled in their own SWP inspired chance cards and squares; on the above square they had written ‘not SWP’ in pen and on chance cards things like – ‘SWP sells 100,000 papers – revolution a certainty, workers 2 credits’. Although we were all hoping someone would land on the Nuclear War square and end it all, no one did but at least the whole game only took less than half an hour which was a bonus for the teenager amongst us and scored it plus points over Monopoly. Interesting to me, but nobody else, was the history of these two games; Monopoly, despite its own claims, was not exactly invented by a ‘rags to riches’ guy but was ripped off from a game played by Quakers to show the evils of landlords. The original game had streets to rent or buy, utilities like water companies and looked very much like the monopoly board with four large corner squares, including a public free park (turned into free parking in Monopoly) and a private park which if you trespassed on you got sent to jail. So like Barclays and Lloyds, something started by hippy-like Quakers had turned into capitalist success while the lecturer inspired socialism of Class Struggle is now languishing in charity shop bins. I thought this reflection of history was a point worth sharing, but listening to my profound insight and the thought of more board games meant nobody else could now face a game of Monopoly and the TV was put back on instead, to much relief.
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Taken from issue 12 of Now or Never!, which is available in our shop