In the past month, Netflix’s new hit show “Squid Game” has swept the globe, breaking the record for biggest series launch ever with 142 million member households watching in the first four weeks of its release. The South Korean show, marked by gore, anxiety and emotion, tells the story of 456 players — all of whom are heavily in debt and have no means or stable work to repay these debts — who are given the opportunity to compete in a series of six games with the promise of a large cash prize if they are successful in each game. Yet each of these classic childhood games, such as “Red Light, Green Light” and “Tug-of-War,” is given lethal modifications and promises a swift death to any player who is unsuccessful. 

The show provides a stark commentary on the dangers of late-stage capitalism, a system that allows little social mobility. Those at the bottom of the economic hierarchy need to sacrifice their lives, both physically and mentally, to earn money. In doing so, the show highlights the immense need to reform this system and stop favoring the wealthiest and most powerful among us, and to instead create a system that works for all people and provides the necessary opportunities and services for low-income and middle-class people to live comfortably. 

The show revolves around Seong Gi-hun (Lee Jung-jae), a man with a gambling addiction who lost his job after a union strike and owes millions of South Korean won. Gi-hun’s struggle to find a well-paying job and his inability to provide for his sick mother and young daughter prove to be a common theme throughout the series: Each player’s circumstances leave them attempting survival with almost no prospect of true agency. 

Through the characters’ lives, the viewer watches the all-too-familiar consequences of extreme capitalism play out: the myth that it is the individual who has failed to earn a liveable wage; the belief in an “American Dream” by which anyone can work their way up the economic ladder; the feeling that one’s entire self-worth and validation is tied to one’s productivity. These ideas have been cultivated and ingrained in our collective consciousness from a young age, and the phenomenon of people taking any and all actions — such as playing the deadliest of games, in the case of this show — to dig themselves out of the cycles of poverty and debt has become painfully common. 

While “Squid Game” is a fictional series, its metaphor for the harms of hypercapitalism is a most relevant and necessary critique of the American economic system. Economic inequality has worsened over the past 30 years, with data from the U.S. Federal Reserve showing that “the top 10% of U.S. households have seen their wealth rise by almost ten percentage points…while the total wealth controlled by the bottom 50% has been cut nearly in half.” The COVID-19 pandemic has further exacerbated this extreme wealth gap: as American billionaires collectively saw their wealth increase by 62% between March 2020 through August 2021, an alarming 40% of American families reported that they would not be able to afford an unexpected $400 expense. These inequalities are even more apparent along racial lines, with disparities experienced more severely among Black Americans. It is utterly unconscionable that billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk continue to rake in more and more wealth while average, hardworking families live paycheck to paycheck, left behind by a system and a government that are fundamentally organized to serve the wealthiest individuals and corporations. 

As Georgetown University students, we are certainly not immune to this unrelenting capitalist system. I, along with many other students, will graduate with thousands of dollars in student debt despite receiving financial aid, and will thus enter the real world with an already significant financial burden. We will be immersed in this cutthroat society with the hopes that we will earn a job that allows us to pay off these debts and sustain ourselves and the expenses we will undoubtedly incur. However, we must also recognize the privilege that is intrinsically tethered to a Georgetown education, and even more so among the 21% of students who are in the top 1%. It is vital that we speak out and demand a more equitable system — one that would redistribute the absurd amount of wealth concentrated in the hands of the few. We must demand a system that provides comprehensive healthcare, childcare and housing, in addition to well-paying jobs necessary for all people to live comfortably, without resorting to sacrificial, dangerous means of earning a liveable wage. While we might enjoy the thrilling plot of “Squid Game,” it is of the utmost importance that we heed the grim warning this show offers and address the crippling economic inequality that plagues the United States and the countless other capitalist economies of the world. 

Jared Carmeli is a sophomore in the College.