by GREG SHARZER & SUDOL KANG
Critics have noted that Squid Game is a critique of capitalism and inequality. Creator Hwang Dong-Hyuk has said it’s about how people go deeply into debt to survive.
Squid Game addresses this problem in an escapist, dystopian tale, suggesting the extreme lengths people might go to in order to rid themselves of debt.
As one of us argues in research about neoliberalism, escapism and seeking utopia, the tension between the traumatic experience of work, on the one hand, and the need to survive, on the other, prompts escapism – precisely because escape from wage labor is impossible for most people.
Squid Game alludes to the actual violence of South Korean labor history, as well as the need to overcome real inequalities of income and living conditions, in South Korea and globally.
Questioning capitalism
Many people were questioning capitalism before Squid Game debuted in September.
Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, just over 2,000 billionaires controlled the same amount of wealth as the 4.6 billion people who constitute 60 per cent of our global population. During the pandemic, American billionaires added US$2.1 trillion to their hoard.
In Squid Game‘s first episode, protagonist Seong Gi-hun signs away his organs to pay his loan sharks. The show has spotlighted how South Koreans have extraordinarily high levels of personal debt, brought on by a toxic combination of unemployment, easy loans and high interest rates.
Sacrifice of workers for economic gain
In The Wealth of Nations, 18th-century economist Adam Smith argued that property rights require state protection because they create resentment among the “have-nots.” Many political scientists since, such as Cornelia Beyer, have explored how poverty and exclusion lead to crime and social breakdown.
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