Capitalism and Consumerism Theme Analysis

As Vonnegut “throws out” social injustices in Breakfast of Champions, he talks specifically “about the distribution of wealth” in American society and even speaks of his own poverty during the Great Depression. At one point in the novel, Vonnegut’s protagonist, Kilgore Trout, meets the Governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, in a grocery store, but he doesn’t know who he is. Vonnegut claims that due to “peculiar laws on that part of the planet,” the Governor is “allowed to own vast areas of Earth’s surface, and the petroleum and other valuable minerals underneath the surface, as well.” It has always been this way—the Governor “had been born into that cockamamie proprietorship.” Breakfast of Champions revolves around capitalism and consumerism, and Vonnegut blames both for the state of the planet’s economic and social inequality. He draws attention to this grim reality through Kilgore’s stories as well as his own. With his sarcastic portrayal of capitalism and consumerism in Breakfast of Champions, Vonnegut underscores America’s own economic inequality and advocates for a more just distribution of wealth.

Breakfast of Champions is rife with caricatures of capitalism. The characters are either “fabulously well-to-do” or have nothing, and the rich care little about the poor. With something like twenty different businesses under his belt, Dwayne Hoover is perhaps the novel’s clearest caricature of the greed and excess that underpin capitalism, as he appears to be fueled by the possibility of ever-more profits. In addition to a Pontic dealership, several vacant lots, and a portion of the new Holiday Inn, Dwayne owns “three Burger Chefs, too, and five coin-operated car washes, and pieces of the Sugar Creek Drive-In Theatre, Radio Station WMCY, the Three Maples Par-Three Golf Course, and seventeen hundred shares of common stock in Barrytron, Limited, a local electronics firm.” Notably, Dwayne’s personal greed is reflected by the company he owns so much stock in: Barrytron, Limited, which has a long history in Midland City. Before it was Barrytron, the company was known as The Robo-Magic Corporation of America and manufactured the very first automatic washing machine during the Great Depression. No one could afford one of course, but the company still advertised on the city’s only billboard, further reflecting the company’s greed; it will take money from anyone, even those who have little. Dwayne isn’t happy with just one business, and the Robo-Magic company has no problem selling a product to people who can’t afford it. In this way, Vonnegut emphasizes the moral shortcomings of American capitalism.

While Vonnegut argues the damaging effects of capitalism and consumerism in general, he isolates the private ownership of land in particular as the cause of many of society’s inequalities and injustices. Kilgore writes a story called “This Means You,” in which the entirety of the Hawaiian Islands is owned by only forty people. The property owners “decide to exercise their property rights to the full,” and they place “no trespassing signs” everywhere. Since “the law of gravity requires that they stick somewhere on the surface” of the earth, the government gives each Hawaiian citizen a helium balloon to float in, so they can “go on inhabiting the islands without always sticking to things other people owned.” Since all the island is privately owned, there is literally nowhere for the citizens to exist and live. Kilgore’s story serves as a cautionary tale—the excessive desires of a greedy few leave an entire island of people homeless.

In addition to exploring the private ownership of land, Vonnegut also focuses on natural resources, such as coal and oil. When Kilgore meets an old man in West Virginia who has seen his entire state torn apart by coal companies, he laments the laws that make such a thing possible. Companies have the right to own minerals under the ground, and what is on top is usually “another man’s farm or woods or house.” Whenever a company wants to get to what they own, they have “a right to wreck what’s on top to get at it. The rights of the people on top of the ground don’t amount to nothing compared to the rights of the man who owns what’s underneath.” In other words, the law favors the wealthy, who are made that way through greed and capitalism, often at the expense of others.

Vonnegut’s portrayal of the private ownership of land and resources is at times outlandish, but it nevertheless draws important parallels to current economical injustices and inequalities in American society. Vonnegut argues that corporate greed has indeed resulted in the stripping of a vast amounts of irreplaceable countryside, has compounded the world’s environmental crisis, and adds considerably to poverty and the nation’s unequal distribution of wealth. Vonnegut’s novel does not end on a positive note as far as the distribution of wealth is concerned, and he doesn’t imply that the problem will end any time soon. Instead, he brings plenty of awareness to the problem, in the hope that it will improve in the future. Vonnegut argues a more ethical approach to capitalism and consumerism, one that is not fueled by greed and injustice. Ironically, the only way to correct the evils of capitalism is through consumerism, or rather the lack of it. When Americans stop doing business with and buying products from unethical companies, they will begin to strip them of their capitalist power and, effectively, begin the redistribution of wealth.