Sit Back, Relax, and Enjoy the Ride: An Inquiry of Hyper-Capitalism in The Cave Anonymous 12th Grade

Communist ex-Prime Minister of Cuba, Fidel Castro, resolutely declared, “I find capitalism repugnant. It is filthy, it is gross, it is alienating…because it causes war, hypocrisy, and competition” (brainyquote.com). Nonetheless, the vast majority of today’s sovereign nations have bought into the neoliberal capitalist philosophy, overlooking the societal harms of this modern globalization of capitalism. Castro’s staunch critique of free market economics echoes the ideas of Jose Saramago in his novel, The Cave, a scathing indictment of mindless industrial advancement. Saramago suggests that the Center’s unchecked commerce homogenizes its society, and he illustrates this theme through both the attempted control over nature and removal of Cipriano’s sense of individuality. The Center standardizes the entire landscape by controlling the Center and the outside fields of the Green and Industrial Belts, representative of the exploitative nature of capitalistic expansion by the Center.

The Center is the archetypal representation of corporate capitalism, and a crucial part of its society’s economic system is to move away from village-made products to corporatized farms and synthetic goods. Specifically, Saramago exposes the society’s...