INVESTIGATING NEOLIBERAL CAPITALISM, CLASS MOBILITY, AND SOCIAL INEQUALITY IN MOHSIN HAMID’S HOW TO GET FILTHY RICH IN RISING ASIA

Abstract

Neoliberal capitalism has profoundly transformed social relations, economic opportunities, and patterns of class mobility in contemporary societies, particularly in the Global South. Mohsin Hamid’s How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia presents a compelling literary representation of these transformations through the life of an unnamed protagonist who moves from rural poverty to urban wealth. This study investigates how Hamid represents neoliberal capitalism, class mobility, and social inequality, focusing on the tension between individual aspiration and structural economic constraints. Employing qualitative textual analysis, the research draws on neoliberal theory and Marxist approaches to class, commodification, labor, and inequality. Particular attention is given to the novel’s self-help structure, second-person narration, urban transformation, bottled-water business, consumer culture, political corruption, and relationships between social classes. The analysis demonstrates that the protagonist’s rise cannot be understood simply as an individual success story. His economic advancement is facilitated by market opportunities, social connections, exploitation, political instability, and unequal access to resources. Hamid simultaneously presents entrepreneurship as a means of social mobility and exposes the ethical and social costs associated with neoliberal accumulation. The study argues that the novel ultimately challenges the myth that economic success is determined solely by individual effort. By juxtaposing spectacular wealth with poverty, insecurity, environmental scarcity, and social exclusion, Hamid exposes the contradictions of neoliberal development in the Global South. The novel therefore functions as a sophisticated critique of a socioeconomic order in which the promise of mobility coexists with persistent and structurally reproduced inequality.