POLITICAL ECONOMY OF BUGS LIFE

The film begins with a colony of ants harvesting food when an inventive ant named Flik

causes all their food to disappear thus, turning the entire colony against him when the harvested

food turned out to be an offering from a savage group of grasshoppers extorting them for food.

Seeing that there is no offering, the grasshoppers demanded twice the normal amount of offering.

As a solution, Flik proposes recruiting a group of warrior bugs to protect them from the grasshoppers and the colony agrees seeing it as a way to rid of Flik. On his way to recruit

warrior bugs, he comes along a group of circus bugs and mistakes them for warrior bugs as mistake Flik for a talent agent, the two sides agree to come back to the colony together. The

colony was suspicious of Fliks success but a birds attack where the circus bugs in avertedly save the Queens youngest daughter from the bird gained their trust and caused them to be hospitable to their guest. Flik constructed a mechanical bird in order to combat Hopper but the

ruse was discovered and Flik was exiled from the colony. The colony harvested a meager amount

of food causing the grasshoppers to be outraged and begins pillaging the colony. The youngest

princess asked Flik for help and he operated his contraption to much effectiveness until it

accidentally caught fire. The grasshoppers leader beat Flik into a pulp but Fliks retaliation inspired the entire colony to do so as well. The film ends with Flik marrying the older princess

with the entire colony accepting his inventions allowing them to develop.

A situation wherein the relationship between politics and economy is evident in A Bugs Life is the state of the colony wherein they are oppressed by the grasshoppers due to their

superior strength allowing them to extort the weaker ants for food. It displays a form of Hard power, as we can translate the use of the grasshoppers strength as military might allowing them to bully other political actors to serve their interest. Their might allows them to aggressively

pursue their interest by inducing threats with little resistance from the colony. According to

Thomas Schelling, threats and inducements are closely related, although rewards are more

pleasant to receive than threats, their removal constitutes a very effective threat (Nye, 2006). The

use of hard power by the grasshoppers prevents the ant colony to develop any further as their

resources are concentrated as offerings to the more powerful political actor.

Another situation displaying relationship to political economy is at the end of the film

where it showed the use of Fliks invention by the ants. Flik invented a food harvesting device to double food collection in the least amount of time and the least amount of effort. Researches

would show that technological advancements, at least in the case of the United States, contribute

to the growth of their economy as these technological advancement allow them to increase their

productivity and as proof, the development of computer in the middle of the 1990s allowed the

United States to reach economic growth not equivalent to the 1960s as the computers were able

to affect several industries and in turn allowed the country to progress their economic state

(Reikard, 2011). Although the effects of the colonys use of Fliks inventions were not shown, it would be safe to assume that their situation has become better as they were able to benefit from

the invention as well as not having to worry about sustaining another political actor.

Lastly, the film illustrated how nationalism can affect a states economic situation which can be seen when Flik acted as a revolutionary figure against the grasshoppers when he retaliated

during their raid in his colony. Although I can not necessarily state that this is a display of

economic nationalism it shares similar traits as the theory. The ants begin to favour their own

interests and realize that they actually have a certain amount of autonomy that would allow them

to control their own economic statues free from the reins of the foreign oppressors which are the

grasshoppers. This situation allowed them to drive the grasshoppers away and slowly rehabilitate

their state in order to benefit from the natural resources surrounding their colony.

The way I view this film has become greatly different from how I saw it as a boy. As an

innocent child you would only be able to learn that intellect and courage would allow you to

overcome the bullies that you would meet in life but as a student of Political Science and being

fortunate enough to learn several theories and subjects under it I was able to deconstruct the film

piece by piece and analyze how the entire setting in the film worked. I learned that if we were to

disregard the fictional characters and the comedy then we would be able to see a situation that is

actually occurring in the real world. The political situation that was faced by the colony and what

happened afterwards can be a lesson not only to children but also to citizens as they would be

able to learn the effects of oppression and how to be able to counter those effects.

Works Cited Nye, J. S. (2006). Soft Power, Hard Power and Leadership. 1-23.

Reikard, G. (2011, March 1). Stimulating Economic Growth Through Technological Advance. Retrieved

November 21, 2012, from AMSTATNEWS:

http://magazine.amstat.org/blog/2011/03/01/econgrowthmar11/