The Conflict of the Working Class and the Multi-Billion Corporations in the Book Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk

In Chuck Palahniuk’s book, Fight Club, two social classes, the working class and the multi-billion corporations, were displayed throughout the book that caused mayhem between the two within society. The two social classes cannot work together due fact of their economic status, but even if one social class was being sabotaged, threatened, or mistreated the two classes together help each other out to be successful in the real world. The working poor and multi- billion dollar corporations are two different classes that work on opposite ends and have dissimilar attitudes in order for the society to thrive economically.

In the scene where Tyler and the space monkeys gang up on the commissioner and threaten him about revealing the fight clubs, it is explained that the people the commissioner wants to reveal, is everyone that the commissioner needs in society. Tyler tells the commissioner, “The people you’re trying to step on, we’re everyone you depend on (Palahniuk 166).” The commissioner wants to stop the mayhem that is happening in the fight clubs because it is absurd to the society. Tyler enlightens the commissioner on how the people in the fight clubs are the eyes and ears of the society and how they are essentially everywhere. He clarifies that his balls will be cut off if the fight clubs are revealed causing the commissioner to hold his tongue and not expose the fight clubs.

The working poor works for the higher classes of society in order to get money to survive. Without the working poor, the multi-billion dollar corporations and higher classes cannot be the multi-billion dollar corporations because the working poor does majority of the work that causes the multi-billion dollar corporations to be successful. Palahniuk says, “We control every part of your life (166).” It explains how the working poor and lower class does everything for the higher classes above them. If the working poor were to rebel and stop working for the multi-billion dollar corporations, the multi-billion corporations would crash and fail due to the fact that the working poor would do the dirty jobs to keep the corporations prosperous. The multi-billion dollar corporations and higher class needs the working poor to work for them to be successfully economically.

The working poor are principally the servants for the multi-billion dollar corporations and higher classes. The higher classes pay the working poor to serve their needs. They are the ones who give jobs for the working class and without them; the working class would not have a job that pays. Palahniuk describes a scene where Tyler and space monkeys are working at a banquet party and describes how the working class treats the higher class and how the higher class treats the lower class. “A dinner like this, these banquet parties, they know how the tip is already included in the bill so they treat you like dirt (80).” Due to the thought that the working class is poor, they get treated horribly by the higher class. Since they get treated horribly, they sabotage the higher classmen’s food behind their back. This shows how both classes treat each other due to social economic statuses.

The higher class treats the working class poorly and takes advantage of them for sole purposes. In the scene where Tyler and others are servants at the banquet party, the higher class people would request for their food to be sent back to kitchen for whatever reason. “They just want to see you run around for their money (80).” The higher class pays tip included in the bill before hand and because of that, the higher class treats and abuses the lower class to make their money worth. Although the lower working class is already the servants in the scene, they are treated like dirt and cockroaches. The lower working class sabotages the higher class’s food in return of the mistreatment that they give them. This shows how the two classes cannot work nicely together but still helps create success economically.

Lower working classes were raised up to think way different from the higher successful classes. Tyler states to the commissioner, “We are the middle children of history, raised by television that someday we’ll be millionaires and movie stars and rock stars, but we won’t (166).” Tyler speaks for the working class and explains how in reality they have no chance in being part of the multi-billion dollar corporations. It explicates how different the two classes are by the way they perceive things. The working class grew up on watching television that made them believe in the American Dream of becoming rich and famous, but in reality it was just a letdown for them. The higher classes are sometimes born into the class that they are in and look down upon the working poor.

The two classes work on opposite ends in order to thrive economically. They need one another to survive economically, such as the higher class providing the working class with jobs, while the working class serves the higher class for money. The two classes have dissimilar attitudes towards one another and gave each other a hard time within Fight Club, but help them to thrive economically.

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