A mysterious author by the name of “J,” a writer at the suspiciously derivatively-titled website “Back Porch Republic,” has posted a thoughtful and provocative examination of “The Hunger Games” as a portrayal of local communities brutalized by the centralizing power and economic exploitation of the Capital. I think J is onto something here, though I think it should be further observed that the division of the Districts into single-production economic zones suggests that they already began as decimated places, lacking sufficiently diverse forms of local production to sustain themselves. That is, they were established as export production zones in order to feed the the insatiable appetite of the Capital, which traces the trajectory of the national and world economy’s efforts to establish exclusive zones of “comparative advantage” that require obliteration of forms of local economic self-sufficiency.
Let’s hope that the mysterious authors of “Back Porch Republic” keep up the good work and find their way eventually to the intermediary civic sphere of the Front Porch.
