《鱿鱼游戏》的哲学解析：资本主义是阶级翻转的契机还是人性的泯灭？

The third season of "Squid Game" ushered in a dark finale
It sparks heated discussions among global audiences

Today is super crooked and you are about to enter
Analysis of the series of "Squid Game"

The story of "Squid Game" originated from a male protagonist Ki-hoon who lived a difficult life

Long-term dependence on the mother's breadwinner
Use your mother's money to gamble on horse racing

After the protagonist wins a sum of money, he is immediately chased by a debt collection group

In a moment of despair
The main character is invited to participate in "Squid Game"

Sir, you can make a lot of money just by playing for a few days
Would you like to give it a try?

Arrive at the game site
A total of 456 people competed

These people seem to have very different backgrounds
But in fact, they are all people who are in debt or have difficulty surviving

I hope to turn around through this game

No. 107, Kim Mi-ok owes 540 million won
No. 118, Oh Young-wook Debt of 1.12 billion won
No. 322, Jung Min-tae owed 880 million won

By playing the common dilemmas of these players
"Squid Game" highlights the debt problems in South Korean society

In 2025
South Korea ranks second in the world in household debt
Up to 92% of GDP

Many young people cannot even repay loans from their jobs
High suicide rates among young people

Taiwan's household debt-to-GDP ratio is second only to South Korea
Many Taiwanese families have to pay a large mortgage to buy a house

The debt problem has become a common phenomenon in capitalism today

The philosopher Maurizio Lazzarato pointed out
Since the 1980s
Capitalism has shifted to financialization

The market is no longer just about producing goods
The system is also maintained by producing "indebted man"

Let people apply for credit cards, car loans, mortgages, loan investments
Allow low-wage people to maintain high consumption, buy cars and houses

Once you owe debts
You have a moral responsibility to pay your debts

You must work hard to make money and pay off debts to keep your promises

Debtors who can't pay back
It's not just about financial failure
It is a moral failure

Debt (Schulden) and guilt (Schuld) have the same etymology in German

This moral discipline makes people feel that they must make themselves valuable and productive people

This allows capitalism to control people's future life plans

For example, American universities deliberately design high tuition fees that are difficult to pay
Let students owe a lot of debt before they enter the workplace

So that they go out of society
In order to pay off debts, they will volunteer to become slaves and accept low-paying jobs

And in "Squid Game"
We also see that many people become debtors
I had to participate in this fighting game

Now I give you another chance to choose
You will go back and live the rest of your life like garbage being collected by creditors
Or should we seize the last chance we are given?

If these players are in debt
I have no choice but to agree to join the game
Is this voluntary consent really voluntary?

This question reflects another characteristic of capitalism

Proponents of capitalism believe that capitalism is different from slavery
Because workers are free to contract with capitalists
No one will force you

Workers are also free to leave their jobs
Unlike slaves, who are threatened by force

We see many people shouting to leave
After the majority of the votes, the owner really let everyone leave

This mode of operation is exactly what the capitalists promise

This mechanism appears to be liberal and democratic
Everyone can leave voluntarily

But after the player returns to reality
We have seen people start receiving debt repayment notices

The main character's mother needs medical expenses due to a serious illness
Migrant workers are owed wages by companies
Some people are also surrounded by debt collection groups

Everyone strives to survive
Finally, I had to voluntarily return to Squid Game

Here
We see what the philosopher Alex Gourevitch calls structural domination

In a capital society
People seem to have freedom of contract
You can decide whether to join a business or not

But this freedom is not real freedom at all
Because capital is in the hands of a few

Workers must rely on job opportunities provided by their employers to survive

This kind of structural domination
Force workers to agree to work for the enterprise

If there are some alternatives to work in society
For example, the government cancels debt
Or universal basic income
These players will not be in debt
Basic survival can be maintained
No need to join Squid Game at all

It is because the structural domination of capital society has created a group of poor people
People will join the game
Make forced obedience seem voluntary

This brings players back to reality first

The whole story reveals a more important moral

If you go out anyway, you'll live in hell, damn it
I'm homeless anyway
I have at least hope here
If I go out, I have nothing

Real-world capitalism is actually the scarier Squid Game

Coming back to the game gives you a better chance of turning over

All participants are equal in this game
Participants will compete fairly on the same terms
We are the ones who suffer unequal treatment and discrimination from the outside world
Last chance to win fair competition

What the master said here
This is actually the promise of capitalism from the beginning
Compete through a fair market
The most capable deserve the most compensation

But such myths are long shattered today
No matter how hard the poor try, they can't turn over

Instead, it's Squid Game
We see the protagonist break through all the way

As you play the game, you get deeper
The higher the bonus, the higher it accumulates

Players who were unwilling to participate
He actually started defending the legitimacy of the game

This points to a key problem with capitalism
Why do many workers voluntarily participate in the game of capitalism?
Still enjoying it?

Squid Game provides us with an answer

Because when capitalism turns work into a game competition
You won't feel like you're being enslaved

Sociologist Michael Burawoy found it
Many companies use competitions and rewards
Let employees play rush games
Gamify the work process

See who performs better
This can stimulate the fighting spirit of employees
Let employees not get bored at work

As long as superiors reward employees with good performance
Employees will get a sense of psychological satisfaction
Feel like you won the game

Workers who are unwilling to work
It will become voluntary obedience
Be willing to keep playing

Because one cannot play a game at the same time
But he also questioned the rules of the game

Although many people had to join a company at first
But as the game gets deeper,
People will slowly agree with the rules of the game

They will even tell others to follow the rules of the game that were agreed upon
Accusing others of cheating

Those people took it twice
I saw it

I forgot that I didn't agree with the game at all

People who want to escape from the game
They may even be seen as problematic people

Do you really have the confidence to go back to that kind of life?
If you have a way, stand up immediately
Get up and go outside

Michael Burawoy認為
Gamification of labour has another consequence that benefits employers
It can allow workers to compete with each other and create conflict

This is ridiculous
Then you deceive me
Is taking my marbles like words?

Squid Game was designed to be a zero-sum game from the beginning

The more I win alone
It means that others win less

As if it were the personal interest of the worker
It will be detrimental to the collective interests of workers

The organizers may even obstruct this
Provoking infighting

They deliberately give little food, causing disputes
Before the next game starts, get rid of the weaker ones

It's part of the game

There is also the voting process for Squid Game
Deliberately designed to be open
Instead of a secret ballot

This can create an opposition between the two parties

In the second season
After the male protagonist returns to the game
Found that the owner changed the game
Causes the protagonist's statement to be not trusted by others

You look like you know very well
Everyone believes your nonsense, what should we do now?
Are you responsible?

Whenever you see someone breaking the rules of the game, you are punished
There will be a sense of victory

So that people don't realize it
They belong to the same class

Everyone gets into the game because of the debtor class

Games obscure real social relationships
Make people feel like they're playing a different role

Players who have lost their sense of class
Fight each other
Treat the other person as an enemy

Even my own childhood sweetheart
mistress
Biological flesh and blood
They can all become enemies

What are you doing?
What do you think?
Play games

This gamified capitalism
It has long been our reality

Many large companies today use gamification to manage their employees

For example, Amazon will score delivery people for a limited time
You have to compete with your colleagues to see who ships faster

Uber rewards you through tasks
To induce the driver to drive more times

Barclays Bank uses a computerized monitoring system
Monitor employees at all times to prevent them from being lazy

Like 123 wooden men in Squid Game
Employees are checked by the detection system every time they have passed

Those caught by the detection system will be punished

These gamified designs claim to make capitalism more efficient

But game designer Adrian Hon found out
The results of the experiment were mixed

Many employees don't find their work fun
On the contrary, I feel that being forced to do one more thing is more troublesome
I feel like my boss is treating me like a guinea pig experiment
I hate work even more

This brings us to the essential question of Squid Game
What was the purpose of designing these games?

On the man in the suit, the person in charge, and the founder
We found different answers

At the beginning of the second season
We see the man in the suit in the park
Scratch and bread for the poor

I found that most people choose scratch cards
And only one person chooses bread

I gave you a chance, and it was your choice
I didn't lose these breads
You lost it

This experiment seems to reflect the greed of human nature

But what really stands out is the ideology of capitalism
As if a person's situation is like this
It all depends on one's free will
Regardless of the systemic problems in my environment

Cultural critic Mark Fisher called this magical voluntarism.

If a person feels depressed and unhappy in the workplace
That is the person who has a problem with the perspective of things
Change your perception is fine
It is not because there is something wrong with the social system

If a person chooses a scratch card and does not succeed in winning the prize, he will starve himself
This is also a matter of individuality
Who told you to be so greedy?

This magical voluntarism places the blame on the individual
Confusing "spontaneous humanity" with "humanity distorted by circumstances"

The reason why many Squid Game contestants keep playing
It is because you have to pay off your debts
It's not because individuals are too greedy

It proves that the capitalist system is too greedy
People are being killed to pay their debts
Take your life as a price

And in the person in charge of the game
We see Lacan's theory of desire on his desk

This turns the essence of the game to the question of desire

Lagan Psychology believes
Everyone is born into a game
A game called the Great Other
It is the linguistic, social, cultural, and legal rules that were established before I was born

If a person wants to express his desires
You must participate in this game

But once the rules of the game are accepted
People will feel that their desires have been distorted
Because this game was not designed for me at all

This sense of alienation of existence is the fundamental situation of human desire

It's like when you meet a bandit
You have to decide whether you want money or your life

This may seem like a dilemma
But there is only one choice
Because no matter how you choose
You will lose money

In the squid game
This dilemma also arises after each game

The player has to decide again
If you want money, you still want to die

Players seem to have a choice
Not at all

Because when you choose money
If you keep playing, you will die
You will not be able to realize your desires

But if you choose to leave alive
No money can satisfy one's desires

This highlights the fundamental situation of people in the capital society
It seems that people can only constantly alienate themselves in order to make money to follow the game

But the more money you make, the more money you make
The more you become alienated from your original desires

The richer the person, the less they know what they want

And this is exactly the original intention of the founder to design Squid Game

If you have a lot of money
No matter what you buy or use to satisfy your desires
Eventually, it becomes boring
That's why we are all together
I thought about it a lot
What exactly should be done?
Only then can we have a little fun

The fun?
You are for fun
Let's do that?

Here we hear the confession of the founder

So it's a whole squid game
It is nothing more than an entertainment pastime enjoyed by wealthy customers who spend money on

When capitalism reaches this new stage
It is no longer about producing goods for consumption

Because for the rich
Only goods can no longer satisfy desires

Instead, we turned to what the philosopher Guy Debord called a "landscape society."

Capitalism produces a bunch of landscapes
To surround our living spaces
Pop-up Events
Reality Show
Inspiring pictures
Even the perimeter of Squid Game itself is a kind of landscape

Even Duolinguo uses Squid Game as a gimmick

These are landscapes that earn click-through traffic
It is the key to the operation of contemporary capitalism

I'm serious, although the screen at home is big
But no matter how big the screen is, it is not as good as watching it with your own eyes

The rich regard the suffering of laborers as a spectacle of entertainment

These people who play games are commodities in themselves
What is sold is the landscape of the struggle for survival

You like horse racing, right?
You are horses
Horses at the racetrack

By the end of the first season
The person in charge finally revealed
It turns out that the players of Squid Game are not the main body at all

The real body of the game
Be a VIP member who observes and places bets

It's not so much that people are playing games
It's better to say they're being played

Compared to the scene of players fighting each other on stage
These VIPs in the audience get along happily

Just as capitalism is monopolized by a few corporations today
These businesses have no competitors
You can stay out of the situation
Stand at a distance and watch employees fight each other

Oh my God, it's getting more and more exciting

On the one hand, it allows workers to compete under more pressure
On the other hand, allow yourself to avoid competition

Capitalism is such a pathological game

Wait a minute
If capitalism has become a pathological game
Why do we keep playing?

Capitalism promises the masses on the one hand
If you keep playing, you will have a chance to turn around

But Squid Game revealed
There is no win-win situation at all

Survival of the fittest competitive game
It is to play with people as dogs and horses
The landscape is used as entertainment by the rich

It has resulted in a violation of human nature

So how should we face this game?

Killing me won't change anything
Someone will take my place
The game will be held tomorrow

At this moment when the protagonist has a chance for revenge
Squid Game exposes fundamental problems in sociology

Even if the individual who executes the structure dies
It will still be replaced by other individuals
Keep the structure working

How can we change the structure?

Japanese cultural critic Tsunehiro Uno discovered
Since the 1990s
There is a new Attack on Elimination mode that is starting to sweep anime and movie stories

Stories are no longer about working with others
Defeat the Great Demon King together
Instead, you must defeat those around you
Participate in a battle royale

The goal of survival in a game is to keep yourself alive

This survivor game reflects a shift in societal values

In the past, the passing mode was to defeat a big demon king
It means that society has a clear goal and value proposition

But there is no great demon king in the world of battle royale
But all men fight against each other

There is no longer a clear end goal
The game is designed to make no sense

Reflects that we live in a world where we don't know what to do right

People's struggle for survival no longer has intrinsic meaning
It is merely entertainment for people to watch plays

In Evangelion and Death Note
We see two ways of responding to this collapse of the value of existence

Shinji Ikari doesn't want to drive the EVA
I don't want to use violence or join the real game

The result is to act like a weakling
You will only become a loser

Light Yagami believes that reality needs to be changed
You have to find a way to live
Must participate in the game of killing
Aim to be a winner
Only then can you make your worth recognized
Become a god of the new world

But the results of Death Note are revealed
Even if we become people like Light Yagami to fight
In the end, it is impossible to create a new order and stop the battle royale

The world after Light Yagami's death has not changed at all

This is where our reality lies today

Retreat like Shinji
Refuse to participate in the real game
It can't stop a player like Light Yagami

But if you fight like Light Yagami
Make yourself a strong man in the system
It can't stop this world of battle royale

In this dilemma
Squid Game shows us a third possibility
Stop the game by participating in the game

Let me go back to the game
Didn't you ask me to stop the game a second ago?
If I go back to the game
The rich people you serve will definitely find it interesting

As the winner of the first season game
Not only did the protagonist not fly away with the prize money
Instead, I chose to return to the game again

Privately organize a police force
Attempting to raid from the outside

Although this plan was intercepted by the game from the beginning
However, the protagonist still tries to cooperate with other players
Planning armed operations

This is not the first time the protagonist has planned a rebellion

Years ago
The protagonist participated in a strike

My colleagues and I were the same then
Take turns on night shifts to guard the factory
I don't know when the police will break in

Director Hwang Dong-hyuk once revealed this backstory

The 2009 SsangYong Motors strike in South Korea
The company went bankrupt due to the financial crisis
Announced layoffs of 37% of the workforce

The employees then launched a 77-day occupation campaign

So the protagonist's counterattack in the game
It's like launching a strike action

But the difference is
This time the protagonist is familiar with the operation of the game

Know that infighting will occur when the lights are turned off at night
Also know the moment when soldiers will come in to suppress

Therefore, it is possible to wait for an opportunity to lie in ambush

Start now
We are going to the headquarters of the masked man
Catch the person who kidnapped us
End the game

The protagonist is familiar with the rules of the game
Be able to navigate the system with ease
Know how to catch the flaws in the game

This armed revolution failed because of hidden stakes
But it points out what sociologist Bourdieu calls "illusio" (illusio)

Various competitions and competitions in human society
In fact, they are all man-made illusions

But the most successful player, the most good player
It happens to be the one who falls into the deepest illusion

Those who want to change the game cannot stay out of it
Instead, we need to see the structure of the game
Understand how to play this game from practice
Internalize the rules of the game from experience

People who want to change society cannot be independent outside
And it happens to be in the illusion

In the movie "The Hunger Games."
We see people who can change the game
It just so happens to be the player who is most caught up in the illusion of the game

Seneka, why do you think we design a winner?
If we just want to intimidate the people of the districts
Why not randomly select 24 people and execute them all at once?
Hope
Hope is the only thing more powerful than fear

It happens to be because the protagonist knows that the organizers want to take advantage of it
At least one player has the illusion of victory
Want to create a spectacle of one person stepping on another person's corpse to win
So I deliberately chose the strategy of dying together
To challenge the logic of the game
Reveal the illusion in front of everyone

There is no hope of witnessing this game

The result was that the organisers had to change the rules of the game

Pause!
Ladies and gentlemen
Let's announce the winner of the seventy-fourth edition of The Hunger Games

And in "The Hunger Games: Sparks."
The heroine is also familiar with the conductive effect that occurs regularly in games
Only one blow can break through the artificial barrier
Destroy the illusion of the game from the inside of the game
Let the end of the illusion reveal a glimmer of light

The same
At the final level of Squid Game
The story cleverly arranges the elements of the baby
It symbolizes the inevitable participation of the next generation in the competitive game of reality

The protagonist is finally forced to face a choice between one or the other
But it is no longer the original cost of money or death
And became
Continue to be the horse that has been bet
Let the next generation live like individuals

We are not horses
We are human
Human nature is...

If the gamers are all horse racers
When the horses are played to death
The game won't go on
It also destroys the entertainment nature of the game from within

The protagonist's actions become a declaration of refusal to continue participating in the game

When reinforcements arrive at the arena from outside
The entire game was terminated

Must self-destruct

The domination of the game is no longer passed on to the next generation

Although the protagonist eventually becomes a loser
But it makes the next generation a winner
Ended a sick game

Etc
Is there really an end to the game?