Lethal Company: Consumerist Capitalist Propaganda?

[SlySilentLynx]

Lethal Company, while engaging as a game, raises concerning flags through its subtle reinforcement of consumerist capitalist ideologies. It's crucial to how the game's mechanics and narrative glorify and perpetuate harmful habits that hurt our current society.

The game intentionally or not uses gameplay mechanics to entice players into a cycle of consumerism. The relentless pursuit of profit quotas at the expense of risking lives within the game parallels real-world corporate pressures. The immediate spending of meager profits on either more work place gear or trivial goods that reinforces the notion of instant gratification and encourages a continuous cycle of consumption, mirroring capitalist ideals

By gamifying the corporate environment, Lethal Company inadvertently normalizes and justifies unsafe working conditions, exploitative labor practices, and the relentless pursuit of profit above all else. This normalization could desensitize younger players specifically to the ethical implications of such behaviors, promoting a dangerous narrative that perpetuates the acceptability of sacrificing well-being for profit.

While the game may appear to mock certain aspects of consumerism and corporate life, it paradoxically reinforces these very ideals by making them integral to the gameplay. The mocking tone might not effectively deter players from engaging in these behaviors; instead, it could serve as a superficial facade that fails to critique the underlying issues.

Engaging with Lethal Company could potentially instill subconscious acceptance and normalization of harmful capitalist practices. Players, knowing or not, might internalize and replicate these behaviors, perpetuating a cycle of consumerist culture and reinforcing the societal status quo. Because of that I don't know how comfortable I am with how popular this game has become.

[FROGMANCER]

this game is blatant satire, and while i can agree with you ideologically about reinforcing certain unconscious biases and mindsets, inoculation through education is more than sufficient to defend against this. considering that, i would argue that the more realistic solution, rather than somehow stopping people from making fun of things, is to improve education on socioeconomic structures and then continue having fun with the funny ragdoll physics horror game

[nep]

honestly i agree wholeheartedly with this message

[Detri]

Opprinnelig skrevet av BrendyBear:

Haha this is too funny. I'm probably feeding trolls, but I'm enjoying it while I procrastinate work.

"Socialism's first concern is ensuring the Workers own the means of production"
False. In no socialist state have the workers ever owned the means of production. In every single one, the state or state controlled entities have owned the vast majority of the nation's production capabilities. Socialism is always just a means for some of the worst people in society to gain political power and enrich themselves by playing on grievances. I challenge anyone to provide a single counter example of where the leaders of a Socialist nation have not become obscenely wealthy from their position.

The variants of Socialism (Communism, Fascism, Nazism, etc) (and yes, they WERE Socialist) have all been failures that have caused some of the worst evil humanity has ever seen. In all of them, the ruling class has hoarded wealth and power for themselves and the lower classes, including the workers, have been subjected to unimaginable horrors. After the 20th century, where Socialism has been directly responsible for over 200 million deaths, advocates of Socialism are either evil or completely uninformed or in denial about the history of their ideology.

Also, "Capitalism" isn't a system. I'd argue it's not even a proper term, just a fiction created by Socialists to create the illusion that a free market is a system being imposed upon them. The free market is the absence of an economic system being imposed on society, and it's societal outcomes are produced through emergence. Most of Socialist's grievances they have with "Capitalism" are typically one of the following:
- Inherent truisms, like having resources gives someone better ability to acquire more resources.
- The result of human nature, like how most people don't care about other people they have no emotional connection to.
- The result of corruption of the state, like the criticisms that corporations behave like psychopaths and can get away with breaking the law and abusing people.

And with all of these, giving the state more power only makes them worse. Giving the state much more power in a Socialist system makes them MUCH worse. Indeed, can anyone name a single example of a Socialist nation that has made life better for it's citizens?

TLDR: Socialism bad.

"In no socialist state have the workers ever owned the means of production."

You have a problem here. You are assuming that a state is "socialist"...why? Name a socialist state? And how would you actually DEFINE a socialist state?

"The variants of Socialism (Communism, Fascism, Nazism, etc) (and yes, they WERE Socialist)"

Facism and "Nazism" have 0 to do with actual socialism. Fascism and Socialism are diametrically opposed to one another on a fundamental level. Fascists sometimes pretend to be socialists but once they get in power they will pretty quickly shed that sheep's clothing. The Nazi's WERE socialists...before certain historical events that resulted in the socialists being forced out (we'll put that gently) of the Party - "National Socialist" party of Germany.

If a government CLAIMS itself simply to be socialist or communist...look at what they're actually doing. Are they actually trying to move towards Socialism? Or are there some people who just kinda use the rhetoric to their own ends? (much like capitalists do as well.)

"Socialism has been directly responsible for over 200 million deaths" Source for this claim? And again - someone SAYING they're a socialist but doing NOTHING socialist is...how you say...a liar! So keep that in mind.

Also perhaps ask yourself...what of Capitalism? How many millions of deaths has Capitalism lead to? How do you even quantify that?

How many people die a year due to lack of healthcare in America? I'm sure we can count all of those. And what of Corporations employing slave labour, child labour, etc. in other nations to squeeze a bit more profit out? How many have died as a result of that? War for oil? War for riches?

"Also, "Capitalism" isn't a system. I'd argue it's not even a proper term, just a fiction created by Socialists to create the illusion that a free market is a system being imposed upon them." Ah yes. Of course! Let's just ignore Historians, Economists, Sociologists, etc. etc.

So you're just shadow boxing at this point.

[ExpandDong]

ma'am this is a Wendy's.

[Crowtein]

Skill issue.

[Dragon_Dude1]

congrats on learning to use chat gpt

[PikaCrew]

Game makes fun of capitalism by taking it to the corporate extreme in a game that constantly has people memeing on it by knowingly doing the absolute dumbest things "for the company.

Random internet idiot: "By gamifying the corporate environment, Lethal Company inadvertently normalizes and justifies unsafe working conditions, exploitative labor practices, and the relentless pursuit of profit above all else."

[Watereaters]

We know

[Shturm Snayper]

tl:dr

[Lucas]

shortened: Lethal Company reinforces harmful consumerist and capitalist ideals, potentially impacting players' behaviors and societal norms.

[Khaziir Everflight]

This game LITERALLY is a parody of all the things bad with late stage capitalism.
Your "claims" literally are the same level of brainless, moronic stupidity as the boomer "Violent games make violent children!" bullcrap.

Nice clown farm tho... did chatGPT write it?

[Fṛee]

damn that alot of words...too bad i dont want to read

[Jukebox]

Mate, you use Steam. You're already a consumer my guy!

[Ren Vulpine]

You missed the part where this game is actually showing how terrible life is in a world where consumerism and corporate greed were allowed to get out of hand. It's actually shocking you would think it's anything other than anti consumerist/capitalist.


Unless of course you're a troll who willingly ignored everything about how the world in this game is very obviously dystopian.

[BrendyBear]

I had my fun wasting time here yesterday, so I'll unsubscribe. But one last comment before I go:
"And how would you actually DEFINE a socialist state?"
Any state where a political faction that claims to be socialist and spews socialist rhetoric takes full control over the government. Denying all the historical failures is a meme: #NotRealSocialism. As for that they lie, I absolutely agree, but I consider that a part of Socialism. I don't regard Socialism as it's pie in the sky hypothetical ideal, rather on how it has been used to produce real world effects.

"Fascism and Socialism are diametrically opposed to one another on a fundamental level."
No, completely wrong. Fascism is National Socialism. Nazism is racial Socialism (Nazis have a racial conception of the nation) . Communism is class based Socialism. Obviously these are broad generalisations, but do express the form of these ideologies. All of these are obviously variants of the central ideas of Socialism, just applied in different ways.

"Also, "Capitalism" isn't a system. I'd argue it's not even a proper term, just a fiction created by Socialists to create the illusion that a free market is a system being imposed upon them."
I could have worded that a lot better. What I mean is that the free market economy that is referred to as "Capitalism" is the natural state of a market. It is not a constructed system that must be imposed through coercive control. So I reject the term "Capitalism" because it creates the appearance of an equivalence with Socialism, when no such equivalence exists. It's not changing from one system to another, but rather imposing something upon a natural state. It's certainly not the first time misleading terms have been created, or definitions changed to mislead people.
Also, don't lump corrupt corporate practices in with the free market, or the intertwining of corporations with the state. They are anything but.

"How many people die a year due to lack of healthcare in America? I'm sure we can count all of those. And what of Corporations employing slave labour, child labour, etc. in other nations to squeeze a bit more profit out? How many have died as a result of that? War for oil? War for riches?"
None of this has anything to do with the free market. Most of it just comes down pure human greed, which is going to be present in society no matter what. You simply can't force people to care about the welfare of others, only impose consequences if they cause harm. The problem with centralising power and wealth into the state is that it attracts the worst kinds of people, then there is nothing to impose consequences on them when they abuse that power. At least with greedy corporations that are separate from a functional state, the state can impose consequences on the corporation and those within it when it causes people harm. When you start merging corporations and the state together, that capacity disappears and both those in corporations and the state can harm people with impunity.
This is the fundamental problem with Socialism. In order to fulfil it's ideals, it requires coercion (as do all planned economic systems). This requires the state to have an enormous amount of control over the economy, so the personal wealth generating capacity of government positions becomes extreme. This draws the corrupt, which will abuse the power of those positions in pursuit of their own self interest. The easiest people to abuse are those at the bottom of society, so they often get the worst of it. Hence Socialism results in the oppression of the working and lower classes that it claims to be fighting against. There's no way for Socialists to solve this problem. And seeing this outcome happen time and time again, it has to be considered a part of the ideology at this point. I regard Socialists to be either ignorant that this will be the outcome of their ideas, or malicious people who want to cause it because they think they might be the ones in government getting rich while abusing others.