Squid Game Economics: The Game We All Play

We all play the game. But when belief turns into cruelty, and systems into sacrifice, it’s time to ask who wrote the rules, and who’s paying the price.

By Sean Ash

Homeless Person in New York City

I sat here laughing. Not because anything was funny, but because it’s the only thing left to do when you realise how absurd it all is. The kind of laugh that’s followed by a tear, a slow shake of the head, and that hollow ache in your chest when the truth hits. I was laughing at the audacity of it all, the sheer madness of a world where people are breaking their backs, losing their minds, dying in despair, all because of a system that isn’t even real in the way we think it is.

The money we fight over. The debt we fear. The public spending we’re told we can’t afford. None of it is based on anything physical. Not gold. Not treasure. Not vaults. It’s based on trust. On belief. On a socially agreed idea that money has value, simply because we say it does. It’s not that money is fake, it’s that money is imaginary, but enforced through very real consequences.

And those consequences are brutal. Families go hungry. People live without heating. Elderly people die cold and alone. Young people lose hope. Disabled people are pushed to the brink. All while governments, central banks, and financial institutions type a few digits into a system and call it policy. When a war breaks out, billions appear. When a bank needs saving, the cheque is written before the ink is dry. But when someone asks for help with rent, or childcare, or a mobility aid, suddenly every pound must be accounted for, means-tested, justified.

This isn’t just a failure of compassion. It is a deliberate design. The economy is not broken. It is built to behave exactly this way. It keeps the bottom fighting amongst themselves while the top remains untouchable. It encourages blame. It rewards cruelty. It relies on fear. And most dangerously, it asks us to believe that this is the only way things can work.

The suffering we see around us is not inevitable. It is not the fault of bad decisions or laziness or some moral weakness in those who are struggling. It is not because there is not enough to go around. It is a product of choices, but not the kind you think.

These are not the choices of ordinary people. They are not about someone taking advantage or someone refusing to work. They are not caused by the poor asking for too much. The choices that create this suffering are built into the foundations of the system itself. This is how capitalism functions. It requires winners and losers. It needs poverty in order to define wealth. It keeps a certain number of people struggling so others can feel secure. It sells us the dream that anyone can make it, while quietly ensuring that most never will.

This is not a side effect. It is the design.

Capitalism concentrates wealth in fewer and fewer hands, while convincing the rest of us that our place in the system is our own doing. It demands constant growth, even if it means destroying the planet. It rewards exploitation and punishes compassion. It dresses up hoarding as success and frames struggle as failure. And it keeps us fighting each other over scraps while the architects of the system walk away with everything.

And here is the part they rarely explain. When we are told the country is broke, that there is no money to help the poor or raise benefits or build council housing, we are being lied to. Because the money exists. It has been created before. It is called quantitative easing.

Let me explain it clearly. Imagine the UK economy is a huge water tank. This tank is supposed to supply water to everyone in the country, water representing money, jobs, services, and support. When a crisis hits, the Bank of England opens a tap and pours new water into the tank. This is quantitative easing. New money, created digitally.

But here’s the trick. The pipes that carry that water are not connected to everyone. They are connected to banks, corporations, and investors. During the 2008 financial crash, hundreds of billions were created and pumped into the system, but it flowed upward, not downward. It saved the banks, propped up the markets, and inflated house prices. It did not cancel debt, raise wages, or support the vulnerable.

Then came the coalition government and austerity. While money was still being created for the financial system, the poorest were told to make do with less. Public services were slashed. Libraries closed. Mental health support vanished. Disability benefits were cut. People died. Not because there was no money, but because the money had been directed elsewhere.

And again, during COVID, we saw the same thing. Billions were created overnight. Furlough payments were introduced. But alongside that, vast sums were handed to private companies. Contracts were handed out without scrutiny. Friends of ministers got rich. Once again, the water flowed upward.

It is not that the tap doesn’t work. It is that those in charge choose who gets wet and who is left thirsty.

And the harshest truth of all? Many people know this. They know the system punishes the vulnerable. They know the rules are rigged. They see the inequality in plain sight. But they still play along. They still defend it. They still blame the people on the edges, the refugee, the single mum, the man sleeping rough, rather than face the painful truth that the real problem is at the core of the system itself.

Why do they do it? Because to admit the game is fixed means admitting we’ve been lied to. That we have spent our lives playing by rules designed to hold us back. That we were never going to win. That is a hard thing to face.

But it’s more than that. People are not just clinging to the system out of ignorance. They are clinging to the idea of freedom. We’ve seen what happens when that disappears. We’ve seen communism. And it didn’t work. It brought with it limitations, restrictions, bureaucracy, and fear. It replaced inequality with uniformity, but it did not bring real dignity. So I understand why people hold onto capitalism. Because the alternative can feel like being caged.

That’s why I am not arguing for communism. I am not calling for total state control, or some grey-washed vision of collective sameness. What I am arguing for is a fairer kind of capitalism. The kind that does not grind people into the dirt just to prove a point. The kind that accepts inequality as inevitable but insists that no one should suffer as a result of it. A capitalism guided by the moral logic of John Rawls, where society is only just if its inequalities benefit the worst off.

That might sound paradoxical, but it is the only kind of system worth fighting for. One where there are still people who have more, and others who have less, but no one is left without. Where no one is homeless. No one is hungry. No one is shamed for needing help. We keep the freedom. We keep the drive. But we lose the cruelty. We lose the scapegoating. We lose the blame.

Because no matter how complex an economy becomes, the goal should be simple. A system that works for people, not just numbers.

And look, if you want to keep playing the game, that’s fine. I’m happy to play it too. But now that we all know it’s a game, let’s stop pretending it’s anything else. And for God’s sake, let’s not turn it into Squid Games. Let’s not turn it into some twisted contest where people are shot, broken, or discarded just to keep a piggy bank floating in the air filling up for the winner. People don’t have to die for this. People don’t have to suffer so that others can win.

We can play the game, and we can play it well, without making it a massacre. That choice, like all of this, is still ours.