The Office on NBC is a very popular show.  That makes good sense: it’s funny, a little oddball and wacky (oddball wackiness does well when the nation is feeling down, cf. Marx Brothers), and millions of Americans who work in bureaucratic offices pushing paper (though perhaps not quite so literally as a Dunder Mifflin sales rep does) can relate.  But why is it so popular among college students?  We’re not out in the ‘real world’ yet, going to 9-to-5 office jobs year in, year out.  Yet from all the evidence I see, college students love The Office.

Part of this is just because it’s a good show – you don’t have to be a lawyer to love Law & Order, after all – though there are enough lawyers in this country that they are probably a key target demographic for the networks.  But I’d argue that if we look at The Office from another angle, we can see it as the story of a socialist system existing inside a larger capitalist system – rather like the Soviet Union within the capitalist world-system.  I’ll get to why this makes it popular among young people later, but first we need some evidence.

Much has been made of how Michael thinks of his office like a family – he is perhaps trying to build the family he never had, says a psychological interpretation.  But if we look at Michael in another way, he can be seen as the leader of a socialist regime.

Michael loves his workers, and is committed to keeping all of them.  In one early episode, he tries to convince everyone (including himself, if I recall correctly) to take a 10 % pay cut so that everyone can stay on.  He takes a real interest in his workers’ home lives and tries to help them with personal problems.  Of course, this also means that he intrudes constantly into his workers’ personal lives.  And most of his schemes fail spectacularly, rather like the Soviet Union’s (the difference being that Michael can’t shoot or starve his employees (though he does run one over), so his schemes fail hilariously rather than tragically).  Michael also loves to regale his employees with long speeches, and believes in the importance of ideology.  And the office is rife with committees (Party (planning) committees, at that!).

In one episode, Michael even ends up leading a unionization drive among the warehouse workers.  He’s quickly shot down by the powers-that-be, but one can see where his sympathies lie.

Upper management, meanwhile, is more like a real corporation: focused on the profit and not the person, but not as capricious or Big Brother-esque.  Dunder-Mifflin Scranton is a socialist island in a capitalist world.

Many of The Office’s characters can be compared with segments of Soviet society fairly easily.  For example:

Michael= the government

Dwight = the KGB/NKVD

Jim = the dissident intellectuals

Creed = the criminal elements

Angela = the Russian Orthodox Church?

Toby = the central planners (because he’s always ruining the government’s crazy schemes by saying they can’t be done)/ The U.S. ambassador (because he comes from the “capitalist” management world)

Ryan = a post-Soviet oligarch?

The warehouse guys = the peasants/industrial proletariat

Most everyone else = disgruntled workers (to be honest, this fits everyone but Michael and Dwight, really.  Could Stanley be the Lech Walensa of Scranton?)

Recently, there has been another trend on the show to build the analogy.  The Scranton branch is doing very well in a tough economy (and Michael’s bosses have no idea why).  Likewise, the Soviet Union largely avoided the effects of the Great Depression (though it suffered a terrible famine in 1932-33, that was entirely self-inflicted by idiotic/genocidal Stalinist policy, and the Soviets built a massive industrial base through the 1930s – enough to defeat Nazi Germany about… 75% single-handedly, I’d say?).  If you really stretch, last week’s episode could be seen as an allegory for the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956, or of Czechoslovakia in 1968.  Or even Afghanistan in 1980, though the blowback hasn’t started yet in that case.

So why does this model of the show explain its popularity?  Well, first off, the whole American population has the Cold War on the brain – we may not be fighting it, but we sure think we are.  That’s why everything that Russia does is still big news (aside from the nuclear weapons and the Eurocentric nature of world political reporting in the U.S.).  But the idea of a socialist system inside a larger capitalist system has even more relevance for young people.

The United States is largely a very capitalistic, individualistic society.  Now quick, think of the most socialistic, collectivistic institutions within the U.S!  I don’t know what you thought, but I’d say the the education system and the military.  What do these systems have in common?   They are mostly inhabited by young people (which for the purposes of this piece is defined as under 30).  Thus, The Office is very relateable for most American college students and other young folks.

The education system fits the “friendly socialism” paradigm of The Office the best, so I’ll focus on it.  Think back to your high school days.  Everyone was (allegedly) treated equally by the system.  There was a democratic facade called “student government” to cover up the authoritarian system.  The system didn’t really think about individuals, but it tried to get everyone through (well, at least it didn’t “fire” (expel) students as often as a modern corporation fires its workers).  And there were periodic assemblies in which the people would gather to watch parades and hear speeches.  And a communal dining hall.

This is why conservatives hate the education system.  And to be honest, I don’t think private schools are all that different.

And that is why young folks who are years away from being Dilbertized (or hopefully not) love  The Office.

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