I've been playing Stardew Valley for months now, and I'll confess that I'm a huge fan. As I was playing, I noticed that the game had something to say about Capitalism. Mostly, that big corporations are bad because they'll suck your soul. This message is delivered in a heavy handed manner. But beyond this simple message lays a far deeper, far more thought provoking treatise: the reason why we work.
There are four characters that embody the spirit of Work and Capitalism in the game: the player character, Pierre the local store manager, Shane who works at the local supermarket, and Morris who manages said market. The local supermarket is a subsidiary of the Joja Corporation, a really big business that mostly produces soda but also has their own supermarkets, offices, and in the game, beginning new projects to better integrate themselves into the community. It is possible for the player to "join" the Joja Corporation, all for the cost of 5000 G (the in game currency). Doing so allows the player to pay for several town improvement projects, such as bridge repair, bus repair, and the construction of a greenhouse.
This shows us the more "benevolent" side of big corporations: they have the resources to improve the lives of others. Pelican Town, the town the game takes place in, isn't very rich; its bus has been out of service for a while by the time the game begins, for example. In this case, the Joja Corporation's influence is beneficial for the town; with enough compensation, Joja Corp gets the job done from one day to the next. The ONLY other way for these projects to get off the ground involves magical forest sprites.
Yeah, Stardew Valley is like that...
Heading this project is Morris, a local man with big ambitions. Morris is always found in game inside the Joja Mart, the local supermarket owned by Joja. It is he who typically spear heads these projects, directing them. However, Morris himself is NOT a good man. Morris is only ever seen outside Joja Mart thrice: once when celebrating the completion of all community projects, once when the forest sprites complete the projects themselves, and once to go to the local store to steal customers away. Although Joja DOES hire several workers to do their community projects, it must be noted that:
1- None of those workers are from the Pelican Town community.
2- It's all done under the Player Character's dime.
Each of these projects is paid for by the player character. But it is Morris, NOT the player, who benefits most from this method, Once the community projects are finished, Morris is the one who is rewarded by Joja via method of promotion and substantial salary increase. The player, by comparison, is rewarded with a soda machine.
The community does not benefit from Morris' presence in any way, shape, or form. Morris is there to leech off of everyone else's hard work, like a true bourgeois. Morris represents the absolute worst form of capitalist: the Boss who gets rich off his worker's labor.
This leads me to compare him with Pierre, the local store owner. Pierre strives to get rich off of his store; in fact, he dreams of turning his little mom and pop shop into a chain. Pierre is not above attempting bribery (giving whiskey to the governor in hopes of getting a tax cut), nor is he above shamelessly promoting his store. Pierre is also not above using the vegetables he buys from you for his own personal gain, such as when he displays said vegetables in a local town fair as being of his own hard work. In short, Pierre's the kind of guy who'd rather sell a glass of water to a man dying of thirst.
But there IS a difference between Pierre and Morris. Unlike Morris, Pierre is a big part of the community, participating in every festival available, sharing with the townsfolk, and overall making his presence felt. Pierre uses his money to support other local businesses, which are Gus' tavern and Harvey's clinic. This brings forth the idea of the Money Cycle; you buy seeds from Pierre, who in turn uses that money to buy food and drinks from Gus, who in turn uses that money to buy ingredients for his restaurant, which theoretically (but not reflected in the game) comes from your farm.
Contrast with Joja Mart. You buy seeds from Joja; a portion goes to Morris, a smaller portion goes to the cashier and everyone else who works there, and a large portion goes all the way up to the owner(s) of Joja Corp. Since Morris doesn't interact with the town, none of his money goes to the community. In fact, because this is how big corporations actually function, a good deal of the money being generated in the community gets taken OUT of the community and is put into the pockets of outsiders! Pierre might be a capitalist, but he's one whose enterprise benefits the community far more than Joja's.
Stardew Valley, however, does not bring any attention to this point, preferring instead to focus on how a big corporation affects its workers. Nowhere is this more plain to see than with Shane, a local stock boy. Shane spends all day stocking the Joja Mart shelves with food and other miscellany. Once his shift is done, he heads to the local bar to drink himself to a stupor. Every day the same thing; lather, rinse, repeat. The monotony and drollness of his job is a leading cause for Shane's alcoholism and depression, which culminates in an episode of alcoholic poisoning and a bungled suicide attempt.
Shane represents what I like to call "Undignified Work," which is work that fails to meet at least one of the requirements for what I call "Dignified Work." Dignified Work doesn't mean work you ENJOY doing, it means work you can enjoy, but should ultimately be work that allows you to live your life in such a way that you can actually live instead of merely survive. These requirements are:
1- Material satisfaction (the job pays at least well enough to cover a person's necessities, such as food and boarding)
2- Communal impact (the job has a positive and measurable effect on the community)
3- Leisure allocation (the job allows the worker to have some leisure time outside of work)
My concept of "Dignified Work" stems from the Marxist ideal that "work" should be for more than mere survival; rather, work should help a person achieve a grander purpose in life. Shane's story is this idea being tested: what happens when your job DOESN'T give you that sense of a "grander purpose?" If we can't derive satisfaction from our work, then we no longer work with any care. At some point in his life, Shane realized that his job at Joja Mart was getting him nowhere, that his life amounted to little more than stacking boxes for a big company who saw him only as a convenience, not a necessity.
Thus a major problem with working for big companies presents itself: that lack of communal impact gets felt by the worker as an individual precisely because his position is easily filled, and thus the worker him/herself is replaceable. That sense of insignificance, that you can EASILY be replaced by any mindless drone, is in direct opposition to Dignified Work.
And THIS is why Shane uses alcoholism as his escape; he's trying to escape from the indignity that is his job, a job that leaves him dreading life instead of allowing him to embrace it. This cuts into the central theme of the game: the pursuit of Dignified Work and its ties to happiness.
But it is the player character who perfectly embodies this ideal of Dignified Work. The PC is introduced as an office drone for Joja, working his/her life away for a big corporation that sees him/her as replaceable. The PC decides to leave this life, go back to his/her grandfather's farm, and work the land. This new job isn't easy at all, but it IS a life that gives the PC the satisfaction of knowing his/her work matters.
A parallel can be drawn between Shane and the player character: the former is what the latter could have become had they not chosen to leave Joja and seek a new, better life. Indeed, it is only via the player's direct involvement in his life that Shane can pick himself up at all.
Really, the whole point of Stardew Valley is to serve as an exercise in Dignified Work; a life balanced between work and leisure, where your work gives you the ability to live. You work hard and this brings results, be it from a HUGE harvest or simply seeing the satisfaction of a small, daily dosage of work bringing in good money. It's that satisfaction of seeing the townsfolk grow to love you and consider you as one of their own, while simultaneously seeing your farm grow with your blood, sweat, and tears.
The game criticizes that particular part of Capitalism: the one where profits supersede human dignity. This is why Morris, who represents corporatism in its basest form, is so vile. It is also why Pierre, flawed as he is, can be sympathized with. By including Pierre, however, the game is quick to point out that capitalism (the system of monetary exchange for goods and services) is not inherently against human dignity, but rather, that the purpose of work should be far more than just making money. Indeed, work should leave the worker with a sense of REASON TO BE!
Stardew Valley is a game that invites the player to reconsider what work means to him or her. Do you work for monetary gain alone? If so, are you happy with that? What would your ideal work situation be?
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