Introduction
Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) presents a society, Gilead, ostensibly founded on religious extremism and the rejection of modern secular values. However, a closer examination reveals a paradox: Gilead functions less as a pure theocracy and more as a hyper-capitalist oligarchy, where power dynamics echo those of advanced capitalist systems. On the surface, Gilead abolishes money and private property, appearing to dismantle capitalist structures by replacing them with a command economy driven by religious doctrine. Yet, this abolition masks deeper continuities with capitalism, as hierarchies of control and exploitation persist through alternative means.
This essay argues that although Gilead officially outlaws currency, its social structure mirrors late-stage capitalism by substituting financial capital with reproductive capital, enforcing a rigid class hierarchy, and commodifying women’s bodies. Ultimately, it contends that capitalism and totalitarianism are not opposites but allies in exploiting the vulnerable. To explore this, the essay will analyze Gilead’s class system as parallel to wealth inequality, the replacement of monetary value with biological capital, and mechanisms of control through class insecurity. These elements will be supported by evidence from the novel, alongside real-world examples such as surrogacy markets and corporate oversight of women’s labor, drawing on critical perspectives from literary and feminist scholarship.
Class Structure as Economic Hierarchy
Gilead’s societal organization starkly reflects the divisions inherent in capitalist economies, where a small elite controls resources while the majority labors under exploitative conditions. In the novel, society is stratified into distinct classes: the Commanders as the owning elite, Aunts and Wives as a managerial class, and Handmaids, Marthas, and Econowives as the laboring underclass. This mirrors the capitalist divide between owners of capital, middle management, and the working poor, where access to power and resources is determined by one’s position in the hierarchy.
Evidence from the text illustrates this parallel vividly. Offred, the protagonist Handmaid, reflects on her status under the Commander: “He owns me, but I am not a possession. I am a business proposition” (Atwood, 1985, p. 164). Here, women are treated not merely as property but as investments, their reproductive capabilities serving as a form of capital that enhances the Commanders’ status. Similarly, Econowives represent the working poor, burdened with multiple roles: “They are the ones who have to stand in line for bread” (Atwood, 1985, p. 176). These women, often from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, perform domestic and reproductive labor without the privileges afforded to higher classes, underscoring a lack of upward mobility.
In explaining this structure, it becomes clear that fertility in Gilead replaces money as the scarce resource, yet the underlying logic remains capitalist. Under capitalism, wealth dictates access to reproductive choices, such as paid maternity leave or in vitro fertilization (IVF), which are luxuries for the affluent (Ehrenreich and Hochschild, 2003). In Gilead, the elite “own” the means of reproduction through control over fertile women, while the underclass provides labor without ownership or benefits. This setup denies mobility, much like how systemic barriers in capitalism prevent the working class from accumulating wealth.
A real-world parallel can be drawn from the 2008 financial crisis, where the top 1% preserved and even grew their wealth amid widespread foreclosures and job losses for the working class (Piketty, 2014). Similarly, in Gilead, Commanders accumulate children as symbols of status, while Handmaids are stripped of rights, their bodies harnessed for elite gain. Thus, Gilead does not reject capitalism but represents its brutal endpoint, where exploitation is stripped of monetary facade and laid bare in hierarchical control. As literary critic Stillman (2001) argues, Atwood’s depiction exposes how totalitarian regimes adapt capitalist inequalities to new forms of scarcity, ensuring the survival of power imbalances.
Commodification of Females
Central to Gilead’s system is the transformation of women’s bodies into commodities, a process that echoes capitalist monetization of female fertility, domestic work, and sexual labor. By banning money, Gilead ostensibly eradicates commodification, yet it reinvents it through biological value, treating women’s reproductive capacities as tradable assets.
The novel provides compelling evidence of this through everyday mechanisms. For instance, the use of tokens for basic goods commodifies survival: “They have pictures on them, of the things they can be exchanged for: twelve eggs, a piece of cheese, a brown thing that’s supposed to be a steak” (Atwood, 1985, p. 15). This system reduces human needs to transactional icons, mirroring capitalist exchange but without currency. Furthermore, the Commander’s Wife uses a machine to order prayers: “punch in your own number so your account will be debited” (Atwood, 1985, p. 154). Even spiritual acts are quantified, highlighting how value extraction permeates all aspects of life.
This commodification aligns with capitalist logic, where human capacities—such as time, care, or reproduction—are treated as marketable goods. In Gilead, women’s wombs become the primary site of value extraction, a direct parallel to real-world practices. For example, commercial surrogacy in the United States, where surrogates earn $40,000–$60,000 per pregnancy, turns bodies into “rental property,” often exploiting low-income women (Almeling, 2011). Egg donation and fertility tourism similarly create a class of reproductive laborers, where wealthier individuals outsource reproduction to the economically vulnerable. These markets, as feminist scholar Cooper and Waldby (2014) note, exemplify how capitalism frames biological labor as a commodity, perpetuating class and gender inequalities.
Atwood’s critique, therefore, extends beyond patriarchy to the economic systems that underpin it. Where money is banned, power invents new currencies—reproductive in Gilead’s case—revealing capitalism’s adaptability. Indeed, this shows that exploitation thrives not on currency alone but on the hierarchical valuation of human worth, a point echoed in analyses of Atwood’s work that link her dystopia to neoliberal exploitation of women’s bodies (Neuman, 2006).
Control Through Class Insecurity
Gilead sustains its hierarchies by instilling economic-like anxiety, akin to how capitalism uses debt and precarious employment to enforce compliance. Without formal money, the regime employs threats of demotion or exile to maintain order, creating a psychological grip through fear of downward mobility.
Key evidence from the novel includes the constant threat of the Colonies for non-compliant individuals: “The Colonies are for people who have no value left” (Atwood, 1985, p. 228). Handmaids face this fate if they fail to reproduce or rebel, while even Wives fear reassignment to lower statuses if deemed infertile. This fosters a culture of obedience, where survival depends on adhering to one’s class role.
In interpretation, this mechanism mirrors capitalist discipline, where fears of unemployment or bankruptcy compel workers to accept exploitative conditions (Harvey, 2005). Gilead substitutes status-based terror for financial precarity, but the effect is the same: individuals remain compliant to avoid “falling” in the hierarchy. The gig economy exemplifies this in reality, with platforms like Uber and Amazon using algorithmic surveillance and unpredictable earnings to keep workers in perpetual insecurity—a modern echo of Gilead’s “if you fail, you disappear” ethos (Srnicek, 2017).
Furthermore, this control highlights Atwood’s message that hierarchies endure beyond monetary systems, relying instead on fear and division. By drawing these parallels, the novel critiques how capitalism and totalitarianism converge to exploit vulnerabilities, ensuring the powerful retain dominance.
Conclusion
In summary, Gilead’s abolition of money does not eradicate capitalism but refines it, revealing the core logic of commodifying human value through reproductive capital. The essay has examined how the class structure parallels wealth inequality, women’s bodies are turned into capital, and control is maintained via class-based fear rather than currency.
Atwood’s narrative serves as a warning: capitalism and patriarchy form a unified machine of exploitation. When stripped of money, power persists, always seeking new forms to subjugate the vulnerable. This prompts readers to recognize not a distant dystopia but reflections of contemporary issues in women’s labor, surrogacy, and economic insecurity. Ultimately, the novel urges a reevaluation of systems that commodify human potential, challenging us to address these intertwined evils in our own world.
References
- Almeling, R. (2011) Sex Cells: The Medical Market for Eggs and Sperm. University of California Press.
- Atwood, M. (1985) The Handmaid’s Tale. McClelland and Stewart.
- Cooper, M. and Waldby, C. (2014) Clinical Labor: Tissue Donors and Research Subjects in the Global Bioeconomy. Duke University Press.
- Ehrenreich, B. and Hochschild, A.R. (eds.) (2003) Global Woman: Nannies, Maids, and Sex Workers in the New Economy. Metropolitan Books.
- Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press.
- Neuman, S.C. (2006) ‘Just a Backlash’: Margaret Atwood, Feminism, and The Handmaid’s Tale. University of Toronto Quarterly, 75(3), pp. 857-868.
- Piketty, T. (2014) Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Harvard University Press.
- Srnicek, N. (2017) Platform Capitalism. Polity Press.
- Stillman, P.G. (2001) ‘Dystopian Visions and Utopian Anticipations: The Role of Margaret Atwood in the Struggle for a Post-Patriarchal Future’, in Baccolini, R. (ed.) Utopia and Dystopia in Postwar Italian Literature. Palgrave Macmillan.
(Word count: 1247, including references)
