The Leisure Games
by Max Ronquillo and Michael Greenwald
In the opening of Susan Collins’s The Hunger Games, Katniss’s last words to her best friend Gale were: “please don’t let my mother and sister die of starvation.” In these dystopian novels/movies, teenagers slaughter each other for the once-in-a-lifetime chance to claw their way out of poverty to entertain the nobles and give hope to the poor. The Hunger Games show that the coal miners of District 12 (and all districts for that matter) are the prey for the rich and powerful in the Capitol, just as American economist Thorstein Veblen’s theory of conspicuous consumption explained the predatory nature of the nineteenth-century leisure class.
“District 12: Where You Can Starve to Death in Safety”
President Snow’s Totalitarian-Capitalistic Government serves the needs of the Leisure Class: endless resources, infinite pleasure, and violent entertainment. According to Veblen, conspicuous consumption is purchasing or using goods not for survival but for social status. For example, the elites don’t bet on the Hunger Games to win the cash prize, they bet because correctly guessing the winner distinguishes them from their ultra-wealthy peers. While the wealthy hunger for luxury, Rue and other young children starve. This is the dystopia that Veblen feared; to them, it is a game, to us and Katniss Everdeen… it is survival.
Leisure? Pass.
The Hunger Games is a horrifying representation of The Leisure Class in OUR SOCIETY. Life imitates Art? Scary how the trends point to this being true. Today our society is moving BACK towards the same level of income inequality during the gilded age of Thorstein Veblen. The current wealth gap might not scare you, but trends should. As Big Tech profits grow, worker’s salaries remain the same and labor rights disappear. Amazon managers TIME BATHROOM BREAKS. Frito-Lay forces their employees to work 2 months straight without a break. While this isn’t quite the situation of the district 12 workers, the wealth gap between the elite and common workers is clearly widening. CEO’s make about 320 times more than their average worker (compared to only 61 times in 1989).
“Ever in Your Favor”
The last thing to understand about the Hunger Games is the function they serve for Katniss and the people: the Hunger Games give hope. Why do the people put up with trading squirrels while the elites profit off of human suffering? Because they believe they have a chance to win the hunger games and join the elites. It’s an annual commercial for what life could be if you prove yourself to be worthy by slaughtering your strongest peers in front of the world. When Bezos blasted off into space, he broadcasted it to the world and thanked the same workers he won’t let take a bathroom break. We all watched and lauded the human achievement of commercial space travel when in reality only the ultra-rich can afford a seat on Jeff’s rocket.
“Destroying Things is Much Easier Than Making Them.”
If Veblen could take one point out of The Hunger Games, it would be that civil disobedience is how we defeat tyranny and end oppression. As Gale smartly points out “if we all stopped watching there would be no reason for them to have the games anymore.” We imitate the rich by spending our paychecks on luxury goods to fill our free time with mindless consumption instead of organizing and fighting the basic human right to TAKE A DAMN BATHROOM BREAK. If inequality trends don’t reverse, the Hunger Games will become a reality, and I don’t trust whatever sick reality show Jeff Bezos has cooking in that big bald brain of his.
