It’s actually very possible to miss the message of Bioshock. Andrew Ryan built the perfect city and Atlas ruined it. Andrew Ryan cast him out, but Atlas brought the player character as his final ultimate weapon. You eventually rebel, saving the capitalist Utopia.
I have seen people who abided by this interpretation. Any art with any level of subtlety can be misinterpreted. It’s inherently subjective and depends on the viewer’s personal biases.
Are you unfamiliar with capitalism as a theory? Or Ayn Rand? Yes, capitalist utopia. That’s the entire libertarian ethos. Libertarianism is a political framework for governance, pure capitalism is its economic policy.
Don’t get me wrong, the only Libertarianism I’ve ever known is intertwined with Capitalism. But they aren’t the same thing, and I always read BioShock as being a take on Libertarianism specifically.
You’re right, the person you replied to agreed that they’re two different things. Libertarianism is a political theory whose main feature is minimal/no government. Capitalism is an economic theory whose main feature is that individuals are able to own capital and employ workers to use that capital to produce goods.
You can easily have both and BioShock does.
Ayn Rand’s brand of philosophy was both libertarian and capitalist. She thought that the world didn’t need a government because anyone who was truly a capitalist was a demigod who could do no wrong (or always acted in their own self interest which always turned out to be good for everyone? It’s a confused philosophy)
The main villains of BioShock were capitalists through and through and rapture was meant to be a libertarian paradise run by these capitalists.
It’s actually very possible to miss the message of Bioshock. Andrew Ryan built the perfect city and Atlas ruined it. Andrew Ryan cast him out, but Atlas brought the player character as his final ultimate weapon. You eventually rebel, saving the capitalist Utopia.
I have seen people who abided by this interpretation. Any art with any level of subtlety can be misinterpreted. It’s inherently subjective and depends on the viewer’s personal biases.
Capitalist utopia? Isn’t the whole point that it’s a Libertarian utopia?
Are you unfamiliar with capitalism as a theory? Or Ayn Rand? Yes, capitalist utopia. That’s the entire libertarian ethos. Libertarianism is a political framework for governance, pure capitalism is its economic policy.
Don’t get me wrong, the only Libertarianism I’ve ever known is intertwined with Capitalism. But they aren’t the same thing, and I always read BioShock as being a take on Libertarianism specifically.
Bioshock is most specifically about Randian objectivism, which promotes a version of extreme laissez-faire capitalism, not libertarianism in general.
And I think that’s the most economic philosophy buzzwords I’ve put in a sentence before.
You’re right, the person you replied to agreed that they’re two different things. Libertarianism is a political theory whose main feature is minimal/no government. Capitalism is an economic theory whose main feature is that individuals are able to own capital and employ workers to use that capital to produce goods.
You can easily have both and BioShock does.
Ayn Rand’s brand of philosophy was both libertarian and capitalist. She thought that the world didn’t need a government because anyone who was truly a capitalist was a demigod who could do no wrong (or always acted in their own self interest which always turned out to be good for everyone? It’s a confused philosophy)
The main villains of BioShock were capitalists through and through and rapture was meant to be a libertarian paradise run by these capitalists.