The Hunger Games: An economic perspective.
The Hunger games trilogy introduced the genre of dystopian young adult fiction to the 21st century generation. It set the benchmark for dystopian literature in the years to come. The book is set in the fictional country of Panem. A boy and a girl from each of Panem’s 12 districts are chosen to fight to death in a gruesome, televised tournament organised by its government. The tournament, called the ‘Hunger Games’, ends with a lone survivor as the winner.
The books resonate with people, making them remember the not so unfamiliar issues that are faced by the world. Despite what mainstream media projects, the Hunger Games is a lot more than a love story. It explores governmental oppression, classism, the politics of power-hungry people, poverty, the use of technology as a means of control and much more, leaving the readers a lot of fodder to analyse. As students of economics, why not make the professors proud and analyse it from an economic perspective?
Panem is located in North America and is run by a corrupt government known as the Capitol. It is divided into 12 districts, each forced by the Capitol to produce only one specific type of good. For example, District 1 produces luxury items like jewellery, District 7 is known for its textiles industry and District 12 mines coal. This is a classic example of specialisation. Each district specialises in a particular good. Though in this case, the Capitol’s aim is not to optimise for the growth of the economy, but to keep its citizens under control. Citizens have no economic freedom of choosing their own jobs forcing them to stay at the same jobs even if the earnings are meagre.
Thus, Panem is a classic example of a command economy. The central government i.e the Capitol, makes every decision of what and how much to produce while the citizens have little to no freedom to make their own choices. Command economies are often associated with communist countries and historically, they have not performed well. E.g. North Korea and the Soviet Union.
This highlights the effects of total economic control by the government. The government takes all the decisions, not allowing the market forces to determine the prices and the supply. This causes shortages or surpluses, leading to slow growth of the economy.
Same is the condition in Panem where a large chunk of the country’s population is poor and does not even have food to eat. This is the result of shortages, high prices and of course, the absence of their economic freedom.
The novels also reiterate what history has proved time and time again—wealthy and privileged people always have an upper hand over the ones who are not. The story is a representation of class struggle too. The massive distinction between the rich and the poor is quite conspicuous in Panem. Unlike the players (known as tributes) from the poorer districts, the tributes from the richer districts have a greater chance of performing better owing to better training facilities.
The economic analysis of Hunger Games would be incomplete without the mention of Game theory. Since game theory studies strategic decision making, it is but natural that it is going to be applied in the Hunger Games. The tributes need to make allies in order to survive for a longer time. Trust thus becomes very important in this situation.
Death could easily be the result of trusting someone.
Representation of Game theory between a Tribute and their allies:
| ALLIES | |||
| Trust | Don’t Trust | ||
| TRIBUTE | Trust | Both live | Tribute dies, Allies win |
| Don’t Trust | Tribute wins, allies die | Fight each other to death |
Thus, tributes ultimately have to use game theory to try and survive in the Hunger Games. Both the Tribute and the allies will gain the most by trusting their partners. But in order to save themselves in the likelihood of a betrayal, both of them would have to choose to not trust each other, ending up fighting to death.
The Hunger Games trilogy imagines a world that we could live in possibly, in the near future. It taught its readers to question everything that goes on in society— from power dynamics to societal evils like classism, poverty, corruption— because not asking questions could lead to a much worse society. While the chances of the world having an economy exactly like the Hunger Games novels are extremely low, history has seen some of these situations come true. In a world where economic inequality is rampant and the role of the government is questioned all the time, these books offer a glimpse of what could go wrong and makes us think more deeply about the economics of the world we live in.
- Megha Kajale
FY BSc (2022-2025)
References:
For this theory to work you have to ignore that the reason why district 8 children for example have to work in factories for 4 hours or more, to keep up with the high demand of the capital and other districts. The hunger games clearly shows a supply and demand economy, the reason for minimum quotas is precisly to keep up with the demand of the capitol (and other districts) in real life we have productivity quotas and were capitalist. Thats the same system in Panem. Panem clearly has a demand and supply economy, its just that most of the demand is in the capital and the suppliers are the districts, who by the way do not profit in anyway of their own supplies. District 1 supplies luxury items and not a single district 1 citizen has acces to them or is able to afford buying them, district 1 is better off than other districts but that a low bar to beat; they’re no where near the wealth of the capital.
You also have to ignore the fact that Panem has businesses, as early as in a ballad of songbirds and snakes we get mentions of businesses; Sejanus family who are originally from district 2 are able to buy their way in the capital because their business involves selling weaponry, which was very profitable during the first rebellion. And these businesses directly profit from the mistreatment of the districts like I already mentioned, Sejanuses family literally got rich of selling weapons to the capital to crush the rebellion, who only rebelled because of their poor treatement, and district 2 supplies peace keepers too; who’s only job really is to subjagate and intimidate the districts from rebelling. Also in a ballad of songbirds and snakes we get mentions of landlords (plays a key role in characterisation of Snow), Katnisses mom family originally owned an apothecary, Peeta’s family owns a bakery, there are mentions of school, therefore confirming the existance of teachers, people work in mines. And that’s not even touching on the amount of businesses in the capital, all of wich set their own price. Also the market in district 12 we get introduced to in book 1, so the idea that the goverment doesn’t allow the market forces to set their own price is bullshit once you look at the evidence.
Also the reason for the specialisisation has a bit to do with the capital, but is mostly the result of geography, (because by that logic people in us would be living in a command economy) district 4 specialises in everything to with sea products (salt and pearls for example), seafood and fish because its the only district with acces to an ocean, let alone an ocean thats not polluted. District 2 supplies peacekeepers because of their natural defense of the wall, which makes them a valuable military stroghold like district 13 had been (before breaking away). District 8 specialises in textiles because its located in the southeast of the united states, which has some of the best land for growing cotton; southern america has always been a centre for textiles in some capacity. district 7 is the lumbering district because it has a very large and dense forest surrounding it. All of the districts follow this trend, it just that Snow and other presidents of Panem decided to take advantage of that.
Moreover game theory, in the way its presented doesn’t make sense. Most tributes in the hunger games are solitary, with mostly only the career making packs. And that’s not because they necessary trust each other, it just more time efficient to pick off the stronger or more threatening tributes in a group, and then disperse. In the 74st hunger games the career group up precisly because Katniss has the highest score, and Peeta only groups up with them for resources and to help Katniss. Katniss for most of the games is solitary, only grouping up with Rue late-midway through her games, and thats mostly because Rue reminds her of innocence and by extension Prim (the reason she volunteered), and even then she knows only one of them can survive and contimplates killing Rue herself, so she can atleast die in some peacefull way and some morbid act of mercy. Then its only very late in the games when she partnered up with Peeta, and them both surviving is a very special case and is only because peeta managed to sell the star-cross lovers story to the capital. The main way ypu survive the games is by making yourselfs interesting and engaging to the capital, Johanna wins her games by acting weak and hiding so only a few of the tributes remain, before killing the remaining ones. The morphlings win their games by hiding, Finnick wins his games by killing and in almost all of these cases they win alone and not by partnering up.
And there is no slow economic growth, heck, by all technicality the economy is booming; atleast if your in the capital. It like our situation, where we say the economy is booming but most of the population is living paycheck to paycheck, and are 1 or 2 missed paychecks away from living on the streets. That because, like countries like America, the wealth of Panem is concentrated in the hands of a very few, those being capital citizens. The capital is the smallest area, yet enjoys the most wealth. Who only enjoy that wealth by the exploitation of the districts, look at the difference between the capital in a ballad of songbirds and snakes and the capital in 74st hunger games, and say that is slow economic growth. And that not counting how some of the districts are way wealthier than their peers and show fast economic growth and technological advancement. You ccan tel how fast the economy developed by comparing the technology of the 10th hunger games and 74st, in the 10th hunger games the drones are clunky and don’t deliver supplies well, wheareas in 74st you have audio recorders the size of a gold flake, capable of recording audio for hours, you have forcefield, hovercrafts and more, which can only really be capable with the money and resources to do so, which is only capable with a fast growing economy. I took us more than 600 years to go from bloodletting to accepting the germ theory. It took as a 100 years to go from coal powered trains to gas powered. And that all coincided with the rapid economic boom of the industrial revolutions, but like the industrial revolution most people were living in abjact poverty despite the rapid economic sucess, this is the same situation in Panem.
Finally, everything Snow and other capital elite have done has been to increase profit and control the districts. The main driver for why Snow because the way he is, is to regain the wealth and prosperity his family had before the first rebellion. The reason they sex traffick victors like Finnick is to increase profit and establish control by saying that even your body does not belong you, the rampant consumerism that happens in the capital is to increase profit and give off the idea of wealth to the districts, the mistreatment of the districts is to increase profit because of the low labour cost that businesses in the capital enjoy. There are more things the capital does, for example peacekeepers act as guard dogs for the capital by ensuring that collective uprising is virtually impossible, and making any other method to put food on the table (like hunting) than working in some industry is punishable by death. This are all to control the district and ensure the exploitation of the districts continues to happen, because thats what produces profit. There is a reason why during the first rebellion the capital is plunged in economic disaster, and thats because capital citizens rely on that low labour cost to maximise profit, they also rely on the constant influx of goods to feed their extravagant lifestyle.