Landscape with Invisible Hand

Anti-capitalism is a broad political view that opposes capitalism—an economic system based on private ownership and production. The anti-capitalism movement encompasses multiple political ideologies, such as socialism and capitalism. Anti-capitalists criticize capitalism as inherently exploitative because it commodifies basic resources, such as food and water, and exploits labor. The exploitation of human labor results in increasingly severe wealth gaps between laborers and business owners, and the commodification of resources leads to uneven distribution. Thus, upper-class citizens have nearly unlimited access to crucial resources such as healthy food, clean water, and health care, while lower-class citizens have severely limited access to these resources. The anti-capitalist movement argues that economic status shouldn’t determine a citizen’s access to such basic resources. In addition, many proponents of anti-capitalism point out an increasing gap in which the middle class is becoming ever narrower while the lower class continues to grow. Proponents of capitalism argue that the economic system drives innovation, supplies consumers with a broad range of choices, and suppresses government intervention.

Author M. T. Anderson intends Landscape with Invisible Hand to be interpreted through an anti-capitalist lens. He demonstrates a potential future in which the wealth gap between those at the top and those at the bottom of the financial ladder becomes extreme because capitalism has continued unchecked. In depicting the Costello family as leaving their debt behind them by fleeing and starting over, the author encourages the idea of breaking the laws that protect capitalism. Additionally, he exposes individual side effects of capitalism, including Adam’s limited access to medical care and the arrogance of the vuvv and wealthy humans. Anti-capitalist ideology thus drives the satirical elements in the text.