History Main / CapitalismIsBad

* ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'' plays this on both sides. Capitalism is treated as somewhat appropriate for the player, as you need to purchase weapons, shields, and other trinkets to continue forward, but the main villains of the game are corporations. Excluding the BigBad of ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'', which is a religious cult, the villains of ''VideoGame/Borderlands1'' are a MegaCorp named Atlas that is so rich it doubles as a paramilitary organization, in ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' you have Handsome Jack, the CEO of Hyperion (and the entirety of Hyperion which has also become a paramilitary), and the backstory of the series is Dahl (''another'' paramilitary corporation) leaving all of its workers on Pandora when they abandoned the planet, and those workers went insane while stuck on the planet and became the psychos and bandits you fight. Even in ''VideoGame/Borderlands3'', you have Katagawa, who uses Maliwan as (you guessed it) a paramilitary and attacks Promethea as a form of company takeover, which includes attacking innocent civilians until Atlas is bankrupt.

** [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Arguably]] the central theme of ''VideoGame/BioShock1''. The setting is a laissez-faire capitalist utopia in a city at the bottom of the ocean, built by industrialist Andrew Ryan (explicitly an {{Expy}} of Creator/AynRand). Without proper regulation, Rapture quickly turned into a WretchedHive full of {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s and [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinists]], the poor were dehumanized and seen as "parasites" (despite doing all the necessary work to maintain the city), and everything became commodified, fitted with a price tag - even ''breathable air''[[note]]In a city that's ''underwater'', worth reminding[[/note]]. When someone with even more ruthlessness and business acumen began to outcompete Ryan in the market, Ryan [[{{Hypocrite}} turned to state power to come down on his business rival]], dashing all of his guiding beliefs and sparking a CivilWar with Rapture's other business owners. Ryan won the resulting war, turning Rapture into a tyrannical OneNationUnderCopyright, and the whole city snapped a few years later with a second CivilWar that destroyed Rapture. Though, it should be noted that Ken Levine [[WordOfGod has said]] that the theme of the game was more that HumansAreFlawed and [[KnightTemplar extremism]] of any kind is not beneficial.
** ''VideoGame/{{Bioshock 2}}'': By contrast, has a self-proclaimed collectivist fill the power vacuum Ryan's death left behind and rule Rapture with an iron fist just as he had, all for the sake of turning her own daughter into an ultimate leader to rule the world under her "enlightened" leadership. In this case, it is less about what Capitalism does in charge, and more about what non-capitalist rulers can do ''with'' capitalism; Lamb has stolen the product created from war-crimes and exploitation from corporations that mutually destroyed each other, and is using it in her grand, unethical science experiment to create a being that could potentially set the world on fire.
** ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'': While the theme of extremism is about religious extremism used in politics, one of the major power players is Fink Industries, which proudly displays all the grimdark capitalist exploitation during the age of Robber Barons. Fink uses the city's extreme racism to enslave the working class minorities, pays them in scrip, sends them to ghettoes, and has them ''bid'' on temp jobs for the cheapest prices. He even forces them to work in beat with his brother's music for the ego trip!
** ''VideoGame/{{Judas}}'' takes ''21st''-century capitalism to an extreme. An entire spaceship has been turned into a giant theme park, with the workers buying into social media while pretending their sub-standard way of life is paradise because it keeps the lights on. Instead of corporations selling faulty and dangerous products, the ''employees'' are the product, suckered into selling their souls for bland, bare-effort T-shirts and mindlessly worshipping the [=CEOs=] of the three megacorporations. And unfortunately, this also portrays the potential side-effects of AI capitalism, as the protagonist snaps from the stress of everything and tries to hack the mainframe to destroy the corporations' power - which drives the AI insane and causes it to start killing everyone.

[[folder: Art]]

* Music/FrankZappa didn't directly oppose capitalism as such, being a record producer and talent scout himself, but did criticize the brainless, shallow, and unethical materialism, consumerism, and marketing that goes along with it. He wrote several songs about it: "Brown Shoes Don't Make It" (''Music/AbsolutelyFree''), "Absolutely Free", "Flower Punk" (''Music/WereOnlyInItForTheMoney''), "Poofter's Froth Wyoming Plans Ahead" (''Music/BongoFury''), and "Be In My Video" (specifically bout MTV) ("Music/ThemOrUs"). At the same time, Zappa also doesn't seem to have thought too highly of labour unions and the like (e.g., "Rudy Wants to Buy Yez a Drink"). Overall, he seems to TakeAThirdOption in his work, maintaining cynicism both about capitalism and socialism.
* Music/RageAgainstTheMachine: Also a staple of many of their protest songs.
* ''Money for Nothing'' by Music/DireStraits from ''Music/{{Brothers in Arms|Album}}'' is a scathing attack on MTV and the music videos that bring in big bucks for artists without having to do much. It also attacked the consumerism that typified the 1980s.
* This is a staple of Music/ThePopGroup's songs and Mark Stewart in general. As "We Are All Prostitutes" puts it:
--> ''Capitalism is the most barbaric of all religions''\\
''Department stores are our new cathedrals''\\
''Our cars are martyrs to the cause''
* This is one of the main themes throughout Music/FosterThePeople's ''Supermodel'', especially on the [[PreOrderBonus bonus track]] "Tabloid Super Junkie," which opens by stating it outright and critiques the ways in which capitalism prioritizes personal gain and consumerism over artistic value and effort.

--> "Lucid in some regards – Saint-Simon, Adam Smith, Herbert Spencer, Auguste Comte all knew that there had to be a derivative to man's innate aggressive impulses and promoted industry as a means of channelling it and transforming this sinister energy into material progress for the collective. Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle, author of La Marseillaise, wrote a chant to the glory of industry and productivism. Instead of conquering other people or other nations, man ought to conquer nature – to subjugate the natural world under his yoke. These murderous impulses were neither amended nor negated, simply directed at another target. However, as Spinoza wrote, Deus sive Natura (God or nature). Twice, man committed the highest of crimes: by waging an absolutist war against nature and, therefore, against life itself. And, secondly, by severing the bond to nature and forging an anthropocentric worldview that places man above everything else and, therefore, can be used to justify just about anything – no matter how short-sighted or ill-advised – so long as it appears to serve mankind's interests. Extracting man from the natural order, by intent if not in effect, was a sign of hubris which remains literally without equivalent and whose resulting devastations will know no equivalent either. Listen carefully enough and you'll hear demonic snigger."

* Several songs written by Music/TheStupendium have this as a message. "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvANy49Kqhw The Fine Print]]", based on ''Videogame/TheOuterWorlds'', is presented by the Halcyon Holding Corporation essentially saying "We can do what we want because ''we control your job and you are under our contract, so get working''.

* While ''Music/{{Keldian}}'' mostly stick to various science fiction tropes, they do occasionally go into this territory. Specifically they tend to target the "War as a Business" aspect of it with songs such as "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biGF7e-FALk Blood Red Dawn]]" being perhaps the most on the nose out of all of them.
* Music/KingCrimson: [[Music/InTheWakeOfPoseidon "Cat Food"]] uses a supermarket full of cheap, disgusting, and outright poisonous products as a metaphor for the reduced quality of life in a capitalist society.

* Literature/TheBible presents [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usury usury]] as sinful, which if read strictly literally indicts the entirety of the modern capitalist system (it's hard to imagine banking and stock brokering without interest--not that it necessarily can't be done, but it will end up looking quite different to what we're used to). Though as with many Bible teachings, there are various ideas on how this should be interpreted. In any case, the Bible stories ''do'' rather clearly condemn materialism and greed, with even Jesus using a whip to drive out the moneylenders from the temple.
-->'''Gospel of John 2:13-16 (Authorized Version):''' And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house a house of merchandise.

* ''Podcast/DesperateActsOfCapitalism'' doesn't state this ''outright,'' exactly - but it does just about everything short of. The show chronicles the foolish, bizarre, unethical, and illegal things that companies do in their attempts to make money - as well as depicting how often those attempts crash and burn spectacularly.

** [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation Arguably]] the central theme of ''VideoGame/BioShock1''. The setting is a laissez-faire capitalist utopia in a city at the bottom of the ocean, built by industrialist Andrew Ryan (explicitly an {{Expy}} of Creator/AynRand). Without proper regulation, Rapture quickly turned into a WretchedHive full of {{Corrupt Corporate Executive}}s and [[TheSocialDarwinist Social Darwinists]], the poor were dehumanised and seen as "parasites" and everything became commodified and fitted with a price tag, even ''breathable air''[[note]]In a city that's ''underwater'', worth reminding[[/note]]. When someone with even more ruthlessness and business acumen began to outcompete Ryan in the market, Ryan [[{{Hypocrite}} turned to state power to come down on his business rival]], dashing all of his guiding beliefs and sparking a CivilWar with Rapture's other business owners. Ryan won the resulting war, turning Rapture into a tyrannical OneNationUnderCopyright. Though it should be noted that Ken Levine [[WordOfGod has said]] that the theme of the game was more that HumansAreFlawed and [[KnightTemplar extremism]] of any kind is not beneficial.
** ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'': Plays with this, showing us a corrupt corporate oligarchy using nationalist and religious propaganda to hide their brutal exploitation of the working class and ethnic minorities.
** ''VideoGame/BioShock2'', by contrast, has a self-proclaimed collectivist fill the power vacuum Ryan's death left behind and rule Rapture with an iron fist just as he had, all for the sake of turning her own daughter into an ultimate leader to rule the world under her "enlightened" leadership.

Use of this trope is no guarantee that the writer understands capitalism and is willing to [[TheWarOnStraw portray it fairly]]. Some works invoking this trope have come under criticism for their [[ShallowParody superficial depiction]] of capitalism.

** In the original ''Literature/JurassicPark'' book, the entire disaster is caused both by [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Hammond]]'s efforts to cut costs and corporate espionage to secure intellectual property rights.

* ''VideoGame/MasterDetectiveArchivesRainCode'' is about an evil MegaCorp known as the Amaterasu Corporation that ended up overtaking a city known as Kanai Ward and corrupting it, turning it into a crime-ridden dystopia [[OneNationUnderCopyright under complete control of Amaterasu]] with [[TyrannicalTownTycoon Tyrannical Town Tycoons]] as the leaders, showing the consequences of unrestrained corporate greed.

* ''VideoGame/MasterDetectiveArchivesRainCode'' is about an evil MegaCorp known as the Amaterasu Corporation that ended up overtaking a city known as Kanai Ward and corrupting it, turning it into a crime-ridden dystopia with [[TyrannicalTownTycoon tyrannical town tycoons]] as the leaders, showing the consequences of unrestrained corporate greed.