The Squid Game Shows Us Why Billionaires Are Dangerous to Society
The Squid Game is just an outstanding and out-of-the-box TV series. The Korean drama series is a sensation around the world, and the buzz is growing and growing. It would be fair to say that the hype is justified as the Squid Game makes us wonder, think, imagine, and fear the worst that could happen to humans. But most of all, it raises the question of how dangerous it is to have billionaires and powerful people who could, presumably, take an action such as the Squid Game into reality.
Should billionaires exist?
In 2019, during the Democratic presidential debate, Bernie Sanders made an interesting comment saying that billionaires should not exist. Indeed, in the utopic world, we most likely wouldn’t want to have individuals with such enormous amounts of money. Just to remind you, as of early 2025, Elon Musk has around $454 billion, and Jeff Bezos is worth slightly above $242 billion.
On the one hand, if you believe in the free economy and the capitalistic system, then these people are, in fact, the driving force of the global economy and trade around the world. According to Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, we sort of need wealthy people to make things happen, hire and employ people, innovate, and take the risk and burden of developing the economy.
On the other side of the coin, we must agree that if an individual person has billions of dollars, it’s a risky business, right? They can do whatever they want, including creating a squid game scenario… That is a legitimate fear for ordinary people who can be actively controlled by rich and powerful people.
And so, quite recently, Amazon owner and the second richest person in the world, Jeff Bezos, said he wants to watch the Squid Game. Guess what, people didn’t like it. The immediate reaction is “what happens if he wants to do that??” After all, we don’t know Jeff Bezos, nor Elon Musk, or any one of the 2775 billionaires who live in the world these days.
In essence, they can do it. I reckon the cost of making the operation like a Squid Game is not more than $500 million to $1 billion. I’m sure many billionaires wouldn’t mind losing $1 billion. The question is, why would any person – rich or poor, good or evil – want to see such things? Why do we react this way to the Squid Game series? Is that the Dystopian scenario of humanity? Or, are we getting insights into human nature from TV shows like Squid Game, Black Mirror, and The Hunger Games?
Squid Game – Lessons about human nature
After watching the Squid Game, I wouldn’t say billionaires are the enemy. It’s not fair to say that. After all, billionaires are ordinary people with money, and the reality is that the Squid Game also shows us disturbing human behavior and the complexity of human nature. Money versus morals, me against the world, and… are we individuals or part of a social group?
But make no mistake, there are two ways in which such evil things like the Squid Game might happen – governments and rich people. And for that reason, humans continue and will continue to oppose government control and economic inequality. This is the greatest lesson, in my opinion, to be taken from this TV series.
