“I have always known who the enemy is. Who starves and tortures and kills us in the arena. Who will soon kill everyone I know.” – Katniss Everdeen, Catching Fire, p. 456
It’s been said about the citizens of the happily defunct old Soviet Union that for the ones lucky enough to occasionally travel outside its police state, that they “were like coiled springs, leaping at the department store cornucopias of the West.” In the U.S.S.R. everyone had rubles, but in a society where innovative thought, property and the profit motive were abolished, there was nothing to buy simply because there was very little incentive to produce anything.
Grocery shopping was an everyday affair marked by interminable lines precisely because the shelves were almost always near bare. Thinking back to CNN’s “Cold War” documentary from decades past, there’s the scene inside a Rumanian grocery store in which two women fight over a cut of surely rotting meat. Capitalism provides in abundance, while communism provides only to those with “blat,” or, connections.
In the Soviet Union the connected inside Moscow had access to that which was unavailable to the broad citizenry. The politicians ate and lived like the capitalists they scorned, whereas seemingly the only consumer good readily available to the commoners was Vodka; the latter useful for deadening them to their starved state, and also presumably rendering them lethargic in the face of a political class slowly murdering them physically and emotionally.
Absent black markets created by the enterprising at great risk to the creators and their families, the goods offered up by government-created “markets” (are you listening President Obama?) were anything but good. Governments have no resources other than what they can take from the citizenry literally and figuratively at gunpoint, so when governments usurp the production role from the private sector, the end result is scarcity, theft, and a population at war with each other instead of profitably producing for one another.
All of which brings us to Catching Fire, book two in Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trio of novels. The film version of Catching Fire is as most know in movie theaters right now. Collins’ story of a dystopian society defined by misery, alcoholism, starvation and fear of the state has naturally generated quite a reaction among readers. Many, including this writer, saw The Hunger Games as an obvious polemic about the horrors of unchecked government, but as the series is wildly popular on both sides of the political spectrum, there was predictably some angry pushback. Fair enough, plus in defense of the “deniers,” Collins hasn’t exactly been explicit about her political views, if any.
Oh well, whatever the truth about her politics, what can’t be denied by those who’ve read Catching Fire is what its message is. Catching Fire has nothing to do with capitalism, and everything to do with what happens when it’s abolished in favor of an all-powerful state.
The second novel begins not long after Katniss and Peeta have won the 74th Hunger Games. The latter event is one staged in Panem’s Capitol, largely for the enjoyment of what Collins refers to as the “privileged” within its limits. There are twelve districts in the country of Panem, and all produce for the political class that resides within the Capitol. Sound familiar?
It’s notable here that the citizens of Panem’s districts do watch the Hunger Games, even enjoy them, but other than that their television is limited to forced viewing of Capitol propaganda. It was said earlier that the Games are staged largely for the enjoyment of Capitol’s citizens, and that’s the case because its politically elite citizens are “among those whose names are never placed in the reaping balls [the individuals picked to fight and die in the Hunger Games], whose children never die for the supposed crimes committed generations ago.” Interesting here is that Democrats and some Republicans resisted an addition to the oddly named Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) that would have required Congress and its staffs to live under the healthcare law written for the rest of us.
After that, the Hunger Games on their own speak to a society bereft of incentives, profits, and yes, capitalism. In a capitalist society it’s undeniable that we’re working to please one another; our profits a function of how much our labor removes unease from the lives of others. In Panem, where the citizens are slaves of the state, the people are working against each other, and thieving one another in order to live. In that case, the Hunger Games is a very apt name for a games put on by a powerful state that doesn’t allow profits. In those kinds of societies, think the old Soviet Union or North Korea at present, individuals are working against one another and even killing one another in order to survive. Those cruelly picked to participate in the Hunger Games will die with the exception of the one individual skillful enough at killing (capitalistic businesses want their customers to live; as in they want repeat business) others such that he or she is the last one standing. Given the 100 million plus body count of communism in the 20th century, it’s pretty clear what Collins is describing either on purpose or unwittingly.
Of course the 74th Hunger Games had a twist. Without spoiling the stories for those who haven't read the novels or seen the movies, Katniss essentially played a trick on President Snow and the ruling class such that both she and Peeta were allowed to live. In saving Peeta, Katniss embarrassed Snow and the government, and she knows this well. As she puts it, Snow will “always despise me. Because I outsmarted his sadistic Hunger Games, made the Capitol look foolish, and consequently undermined his control.”
Control obviously matters in a society overrun by politicians, and as a result of Katniss exposing a naked emperor in President Snow, there’s unrest in the various districts who solely toil for Snow, the Capitol, and its citizens. To put it more plainly, a revolt among the government-oppressed is taking shape; Katniss the symbol of hope among commoners eager to take back control of an existence that is presently defined by unrelenting drudgery, hunger, and fear of a well-armed state.
Snow obviously can’t let this happen. He rules by fear, but Katniss and the Mockinjay (“A mockinjay is a creature the Capitol never intended to exist”) which symbolizes her speaking truth to power have galvanized those suffering under thuggish politicians. Seeking to tamp down a nascent revolt, Snow comes uninvited to the home of Katniss, at which point she knows “I’m in serious trouble.”
Yes, she is. Katniss is once again the source of revolt, and Snow alerts her to how many “people would die” if the uprising gets out of hand. As he puts it further on, “Whatever problems anyone may have with the Capitol, believe me when I say that if it released its grip on the districts for even a short time, the entire system would collapse.” The ravings of a dictator, or better yet, many a true politician. President Obama wanted to ‘free’ Americans of allegedly subpar health insurance, but as is so often the case when government intervenes in markets, our 44th president has ‘freed’ many an American of health insurance altogether.
Brutal dictators of Snow’s ilk can’t countenance too much in the way of dissent. The citizenry instead must give up control to politicians, and in the case of Panem, “Not only are we in the districts forced to remember the iron grip of the Capitol’s power each year, we are forced to celebrate it.” Hence the Hunger Games, and forced viewing of government propaganda.
What staggers this writer is that some would presume all this force is a metaphor for big, capitalistic businesses. What a laugh. In a free market society driven by profits, businesses serve at our pleasure. As opposed to forcing us to buy that which they produce, businesses must give us what we want or we’ll put them out of business. RIM Blackberry once soared well above all makers of smartphones until Apple Inc. brought about its decline with an iPhone that clearly pleased customers even more.
Blockbuster Video once ruled the market for video rentals until Netflix came along and offered customers something much better. Global behemoth Coca-Cola once tried to foist “New Coke” on its rabid customer base, only to have that customer base revolt such that Coca-Cola Classic was rushed back to the marketplace by fearful Coke executives. Ford Motor Co. long ago introduced the Edsel, only to have its customers roll their eyes at this commercial definition of a lemon.
To succeed, businesses must once again give us what we want, and to ensure their longevity, they must continue to do just that. When businesses arrive at our homes we’re not in “serious trouble,” rather we know they’ve arrived to try and please us. Notable here is that if we’re not made excited by their arrival, we don’t let them in.
Considering food, having won the Hunger Games, eating is no longer a problem for Katniss and her family. As Katniss puts it, “It doesn’t matter for my mother and my little sister, Prim, any more. They can afford to buy butcher meat in town.” The connected always can as Soviet history clearly reveals, and for having won a game of killing staged by a government whose power is rooted in its ability to kill, Katniss and her family no longer have to break the law and hunt for limited food.
Figure in capitalist societies, plentiful food is the rule. Even better in societies defined by the specialization that free trade always gifts them with, those most skilled at hunting, fishing and farming produce the food that we buy with our own specialized labor. That’s not true in Panem where hunger is the norm, where “Hunting in the woods surrounding District 12 violates at least a dozen laws and is punishable by death,” where near certain death in the Hunger Games at least brings with it the plentiful nourishment enjoyed by the political class in the Capitol. Black markets? They exist in the districts just as they did in the Soviet Union, but in Catching Fire the Hob, District 12’s black market, is destroyed by well-armed government “Peacekeepers” who are executing around the country those with the temerity to revolt against an obnoxious, bullying government.
Notable here is that while food and shelter are no longer a consideration for Katniss and her family, Gale, the love of her life, will have none of Katniss’s government-attained perks. As Katniss describes it, “here I am with buckets of money, far more than enough to feed both our families now, and he won’t take a single coin.” As she explains later in the novel, “Gale’s already so angry and frustrated with the Capitol that I sometimes think he’s going to arrange his own uprising.”
Katniss feels terrible for having embarrassed President Snow because if she hadn’t, as in if she’d died, Peeta, Gale and “everyone else would have been safe, too.” In response, Gale, channeling a very American immigrant spirit whereby those who came here surely didn’t cross an ocean in search of 'security,' asked Katniss what would have been so great about being safe? “Safe to do what?” “Starve? Work like slaves?”
Time will tell, probably this will take place in book three, Mockinjay, but Gale, the government-loathing, handout decrying libertarian will probably emerge heroic. For now, Gale and Katniss are most comfortable in the woods, because the “woods have always been our place of safety, our place beyond the reach of the Capitol, where we’re free to say what we feel, be who we are.” Katniss isn’t quite the rebel that Gale is, but she understands well that he’s the model human in this inhumane country, and ultimately feels that if she sets out to defy the Capitol, that “I am someone of worth.”
To read Catching Fire and presume that it’s anything other than a polemic against communistic, brutal government is a certain act of willful blindness. In a capitalistic world largely free of government we’re happily dividing up work on the way to producing plenty in the name of profit, all free of fear of politicians.
Panem, on the other hand, is marked by certain misery such that everyone is an unhappy slave to the state. This is the true ‘race to the bottom,’ and we should be thankful that Suzanne Collins has written such a popular trilogy that will make the horrors of big government apparent to all who read her.
