Your Favorite TV Shows Hate Capitalism—And You Should Too!

by: Alex Quigley

From Netflix’s Squid Game to Apple TV’s Severance, capitalist critiques have become all the rage in popular media. As much as I love seeing more shows like this, I think that the proliferation of anti-capitalist media [AQ1] inversely mirrors the decline of power amongst the working class. Discontent and class struggle are salient in these shows, which I think is a valid reflection of our current era. More and more Americans say the economy is “extremely important”[AQ2] to their presidential vote every passing election season. This past election season, the economy was the most important issue [AQ3] to Americans, and you may have seen this confirmed in the oft quoted meme “Americans really traded their democracy for eggs.”

However, it’s hard to blame the more than 50% of voters who elected Trump because the material conditions of the masses are at a boiling point, and there’s a well-supported link [AQ4] between economic instability and hateful ideology[AQ5] ; they are but the victims in this scheme. In no way am I excusing the MAGA-right’s bigotry, but I think the worsening material conditions of the past several decades (which tend to hit the rural south harder[AQ6] ) go a long way to contextualize all of the hateful rhetoric being spewed by them. They are flailing for answers and solutions to the discontent and daily hardship they experience. Indeed, the US has seen a massive transfer of wealth[AQ7] from the “middle class” to the wealthiest class in the past 60 years; the richest 5% of Americans own 2/3 of the country’s wealth[AQ8] ; the top 1% own more than half of the stock market[AQ9] ; since 1978, CEO pay has increased 1,085% [AQ10] compared to typical workers’ 24% pay increase; labor unions continue to weaken[AQ11] ; employers commit wage theft [AQ12] to the tune of $8 billion per year; real wages have mostly stagnated [AQ13] despite worker productivity seeing huge growth. I could honestly find dozens and dozens more of these statistics, but all of them are here to make the same point: it’s rough out here for the average American. Basic necessities like groceries [AQ14] and rent [AQ15] are unaffordable while a handful of people hoarding unimaginable wealth get to live a life of inconceivable luxury. We encounter people experiencing homelessness on virtually every street corner in downtown Chicago while simultaneously walking past high-end fashion stores selling goods that only the wealthy can afford. There’s an obvious cruelty in all of this: an indefensible, irrational cruelty that we are all expected to accept—that there are haves and have-nots, that there are some people who have earned their way to total abundance, while countless others deserve their suffering, their homelessness, their financial instability, their debts. Hopefully, if you’re reading this article, you’re familiar with this myth of meritocracy[AQ16] .

As well-educated students in a blue city, most of us are acutely aware of how unfair “the system” is. I doubt anyone was gasping at the above cited statistics of overwhelming wealth inequality and class disparity or that meritocracy is a lie. But despite our growing awareness of capitalism’s horrors and the entertainment industry’s recognitions of its failures, mainstream political discourse has only grown more toothless. The Democratic Party continues to shift right, conceding more ground to an increasingly extremist GOP, and the media seems to be following suit in some of the most normative and unquestioning coverage I’ve ever seen. Take, for example, the alarming passivity [AQ17] behind Trump’s intent to ethnically cleanse Gaza, a CNN host agreeing that gutting the federal government is a “valid goal[AQ18] ,” or “left leaning” news sources referring to Elon Musk’s Sieg Heil salute as a mere “hand gesture[AQ19] .” Everywhere you look there is broad acceptance and tepid-at-best pushback[AQ20] against an unprecedented wave of fascism, conservatism, and overt white supremacy. For those of us that see these shifts as deeply alarming, the mainstream media’s response feels like gaslighting.

I think anti-capitalist media has paradoxically risen alongside increasingly capitalist-normative news coverage because the latter makes no efforts to explain the root of society’s failures—it’s too busy normalizing them. Just as the mainstream media normalizes far-right conservatism, it’s been doing the same for capitalist-created horrors for decades. Instead of investigating why we keep experiencing record-breaking heat waves, we’re given 10 tips on how to keep cool, for example. Although the oligarchs in charge of our media [AQ21] have nothing to gain from us thinking critically about the cause and effect of calamitous events, human beings have a natural hunger for understanding the world around us, and the mainstream media is simply incapable of satiating this appetite. Thus it’s mainstream entertainment that answers the call.

Mainstream entertainment has (ironically) capitalized on the people’s yearning for catharsis, something that makes them feel like they aren’t crazy and there’s a reason everything sucks. Capitalist-critical media offers just that: Severance evokes the drudgery you feel going into your office job every day while literalizing our cultural concept of “work-life balance” to depressing ends. Squid Game turns insurmountable debt into a gamified death sentence for all too willing (desperate) contestants. Maid shows us the pitiful insufficiency of social services for victims of abuse and the precarity of leaving an abusive relationship when you have no financial resources of your own. White Lotus affirms our suspicions that the ultra-wealthy, even with all their riches, are still utterly miserable and dysfunctional. Snowpiercer posits that the class system is not the natural order of things, it was intentionally designed and imposed on us. The Boys takes aim at the danger of giant corporations becoming too powerful and having unchecked influence on our government and media. The Fall of the House of Usher exhibits the moral depravity and pure insidiousness brought out by a growth-at-all-costs mentality in big pharma. You don’t have to read Marx to know capitalism is a nightmare—you just have to watch TV.

Don’t get me wrong, I think all of these shows are phenomenal, and I love to see such thoughtful and striking critiques in an artful medium. However, I think most of us are settling for small moments of anti-capitalist catharsis to feel better about the state of the world, to ease our discomfort with the inherent contradictions we confront every day. In fact, I think it’s probable that these giant media conglomerates are banking on their entertainment pacifying—not radicalizing—you. As a lover of capitalist-critical media and a hater of capitalism, I urge the following: If these shows resonate with you, if you feel like they are speaking truth to power, don’t settle for these pieces of entertainment to be your release. My advice, however, is not to call your congressperson, subscribe to MoveOn, or follow AOC on Twitter. Our current modalities of social/political change are insufficient and ineffective, and given the state of…everything…I am advocating for a different path forward. Reforms will not save us. Here's why:

If you’ve been leaning into left-leaning radicalization like I have for the past several years, you’ve probably at some point had the realization that “it’s all connected,” and this epiphany may conjure images of a crazed Charlie Day from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia in front of a corkboard covered in lines of red yarn. But the interconnectedness we observe about all the world’s biggest problems is not a radical conspiracy, it is a simple, rational observation. Let’s take some basic systems in the United States: healthcare, housing, criminal justice, government, education, energy, and food. These systems don’t just keep society functioning and people alive, they are embedded in every facet of our lives, they’re key determiners of peoples’ happiness, well-being, and longevity. Let’s look at a few key facts of each of these systems in turn and think about whether incremental reforms passed through federal and state legislatures can solve these problems. [This is obviously a non-exhaustive list, which was cut down from this longer non-exhaustive list[AQ22] , if you want to read about more systemic failures].

· Healthcare: despite spending more money than any other-high income country, the US ranks lowest [AQ23] in life expectancy at birth and highest in avoidable deaths. It is the only high-income country that doesn’t guarantee healthcare coverage.

· Housing: there are 28 vacant homes [AQ24] for every one person experiencing homelessness. More than half of US renters are spending 30% or more [AQ25] of their income on housing. Home and rental prices have drastically outpaced wages[AQ26] for decades.

· Criminal Justice: Americans make up less than 5% of the global population, but our prisoners comprise 25% of the world’s prison population[AQ27] . Despite the US’s huge reliance on incarceration, its effect “as a deterrent to crime [AQ28] is minimal at best.” Meanwhile, the private sector extracts billions [AQ29] in value from a forced labor population making pennies per hour.

· Government: a study [AQ30] measuring American citizens’ policy preferences against Congress’s actual policy output found that “the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.” (emphasis added). It should come as no surprise that upwards of 75% of Americans [AQ31] think Congress is doing a bad job.

· Education: Public schools, on average, receive about half of their funding [AQ32] from property taxes, which has led to massive achievement gaps [AQ33] between students from rich and poor neighborhoods for decades. Unsurprisingly, about 2/3 of public schools are underfunded[AQ34] , teachers are significantly underpaid [AQ35] (and leaving the profession at alarming rates[AQ36] ), and students pay the price with poorer learning outcomes[AQ37] .

· Food: The US heavily subsidizes [AQ38] grains that make up ultra-processed foods, whereas fruits and vegetables receive very little by comparison. Accordingly, about 60% of the American diet [AQ39] comes from processed foods, and almost no Americans [AQ40] meet the criteria for living a “healthy lifestyle.”

· Energy: The US spends billions [AQ41] on direct subsidies (and hundreds of billions on indirect subsidies) that go to the fossil fuel industry, which works tirelessly to prevent green energy [AQ42] from taking significant market share while spreading disinformation[AQ43] about climate change.

On a systemic level nothing is working. To be more specific, however, nothing is working for the working class, the average person. For the bourgeois, the multi-millionaires and billionaires, these systems are working exactly as designed: what we label as systemic issues, they see as the perfect expression of their preferences: essential public services dominated by the whims of deregulated private markets under their exclusive control. Where a normal person might see basic necessities, the ruling class sees profit opportunities. The capitalists rigged control of the game centuries ago by cracking the code of “democratic” power. Take for example, a politician like Bernie Sanders—who in most European political systems would be labeled a centrist[AQ44] —being maligned and written off as a radical socialist that, thanks to the institutional elites [AQ45] of the Democratic Party, will never be allowed anywhere near the presidency. Far from a socialist revolution, he advocated for modest reforms like a progressive tax hike on the rich, (actual) universal healthcare, and free education. But even this modest encroachment on capitalist power was unacceptable to the ruling class[AQ46] , and unfortunately inconceivable for much of the US working class that would benefit most from it. Socialist reforms have no home in a political system that is characterized by performative debates between Republicans and Democrats—parties that debate not how, but if we should improve life for working-class Americans. And thanks to capitalists’ unfettered influence over both those political parties, the answer to that question is almost always no, leaving the working class with the mere illusion of democracy as they are forced to believe in the fallacy [AQ47] that their interests are being express through our elected officials.

We have to stop pretending that our elected officials are capable of solving the problems that unchecked capitalism has created. We have to stop pretending that voting will save us, that everything would’ve been great had Kamala won. We can’t vote our way out of such an entrenched, hyper-capitalist system. The capitalists have had their say as to how our society should be run for too long; we have constructed everything around their perverse incentives: that healthcare, housing, education, food, and water should be profitable, that the owning class deserves to extract the value of our labor just by the virtue of them being owners. Enough.

I know this is law school and that our education is meant to make us officers of the court. But I’m not advocating for lawlessness as societies obviously need rules. The problem is, our legal system isn’t separate from capitalism, it’s grafted around it. Just look at what most law students aspire to: Big Law (corporate law) helping corporations evade taxes, merge competition, and defend lawsuits from exploited workers. Why? Because it pays better than any other legal field, which is of course another perverse incentive. Instead of defending the oppressed, pursuing environmental justice, or fighting the prison-industrial complex, the most profitable and incentivized path is to serve corporate interests. I want to be a lawyer, but not in this system. We need a new one. Overthrowing capitalism doesn’t mean chaos—it means constructing laws that serve human interests, never profit. Laws that put workers first, that can enforce the guarantees of basic necessities, and prevent power and wealth from being hoarded and weaponized against the powerless. In a post-revolution world, the law should be a tool for liberation, not the enshrining of bourgeois interests.

To wrap up: We need to ditch this failure of an economic and social system and seriously consider the alternatives—namely, socialism and communism—and how we can achieve this goal. Confused what a new system could look like? Watch this video[AQ48] . Better yet, look into joining [AQ49] an actual communist party. We don’t have to accept misery, exploitation, and injustice everywhere we look, but we do need to stop trying to work with the greed-driven elites who make this country (and world) such a dumpster fire to begin with. Embrace a revolutionary imagination of what this world could look like if we traded ruthless competition for compassionate cooperation and a shared vision of how to drive progress for all of humanity, not just an elite few. I have to believe it’s possible. And I hope you do too.

[AQ1]https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/2023/08/why-media-conglomerates-are-spoon-feeding-us-anti-capitalism

[AQ2]https://news.gallup.com/poll/651719/economy-important-issue-2024-presidential-vote.aspx

[AQ3]https://news.gallup.com/poll/651719/economy-important-issue-2024-presidential-vote.aspx

[AQ4]1. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1369183X.2023.2259108#abstract

2. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11410237/

3. https://academic.oup.com/migration/article-abstract/2/2/135/973370?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=false&utm_source=chatgpt.com

[AQ5]https://www.theholocaustexplained.org/the-nazi-rise-to-power/the-nazi-rise-to-power/the-role-of-economic-instability/

[AQ6]https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=98028

[AQ7]https://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/

[AQ8]https://inequality.org/facts/wealth-inequality/

[AQ9]https://inequality.org/facts/wealth-inequality/

[AQ10]https://www.epi.org/publication/ceo-pay-in-2023/