How a simple corridor showcases BioShock's anti-capitalist philosophy
Everything about BioShock's world design - even a simple corridor - reinforces its take on capitalism and Objectivism
This article is a lightly altered transcript of this video, one of a series in which I examine a single room to discuss why it encapsulates what makes a game great.
BioShock is not a subtle game. It’s explicitly a refutation of the Ayn Randian capitalism that has so suffused modern America.
It’s far better than its later sequel, Bioshock Infinite, in that it actually has something to say about the system it is criticising rather than dipping in and out of both political criticism and quantum mechanics.
BioShock is a straightforward narrative about Objectivism and the people who would try to enforce late-stage capitalism on a city — even if it is as precarious as a metropolis at the bottom of the sea. The weight of the ocean atop Rapture — the city of the game — is an almost inexpressibly blatant criticism of capitalism. It can go at a moment’s notice, and the people who suffer the most from its collapse are the poor and disenfranchised.
But if you’re one of the many losers who adore that hypocrite Ayn Rand and her philosophy of Objectivism, that’s all gravy. That’s social Darwinism at work – even if in practice it’s socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor. And yet in Rapture where ‘a man creates and a parasite asks, “Where is my share?”’ we see the undeniable physical impact of that unbelievably trite, provably false nonsense in every aspect of the game design and the world design specifically.
So if we go through this farmers market, we see this which should be an under the sea utopia. And yet the glass is dirty. It’s cracked. It’s on the edge of fragmentation and therefore the edge of immediate death for everybody in the city. The second this glass blows, pressure will pull those nearby out into the sucking darkness of the ocean and everybody will die.
It happens a couple of times throughout the narrative and it makes plain how fragile this objectivist approach to everyday capitalism actually is. So the fact that it’s beautiful and appealing is by design. Advertisements usually are – and often misrepresent the product. Let’s be honest, they’re lies.
But this nondescript room, a simple corridor that you’ll probably pass by without thinking by this point, puts paid to that lie. It is by design a macrocosm of this philosophy. Look at this tree for example. Nobody can access that. It’s ostensibly providing oxygen to the city, but its limbs have been trimmed.
It’s barely producing leaves. It is a stunted and warped thing, barely providing a necessary ingredient for life to the people of Rapture. But it’s still there against the neon capitalist backdrop of all these advertisements, the promise of life and freedom caged, in service to the false idea that wealth is all that matters and is a measure of a man’s worth.
Of course, by the end of the game’s story, we see that such a system – powered by greed and disregard for your fellow man – inevitably collapses from within. Andrew Ryan – see, I told you it wasn’t subtle – and his submerged city die.
If you’re interested in how capitalism and Objectivism – specifically, the idea that by being wealthy you are more worthy than anybody else, or that a man can ever truly drag themselves up by their bootstraps alone – are total nonsense then play BioShock. Play Bioshock 2. But whatever you do don’t play BioShock Infinite, which accidentally proves Ryan correct by having an outside force be responsible for the fall of Rapture. I mean, what the fuck is that about.
If you enjoyed the video or the article, please do share or subscribe. If you’d like, I’m always open to feedback.
Other GameRoom videos: