Film & Philosophy: HBO’s Industry Asks Us: Is Knowledge Truly Power?
- Ilana Davis
- 7 minutes ago
- 4 min read
As Harper explains in her interview at Pierpoint & Co., “I think this is the closest thing to a meritocracy there is. And I only ever want to be judged on the strength of my abilities.”
This deceptively simple quote has come to define Harper’s worldview. And, in many ways, the core of Industry itself.
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What Is Industry About?
HBO’s Industry premiered in 2020, introducing viewers to London’s turbulent ecosystem of financial dominance through the eyes of recent graduates entering their first year at the prestigious Pierpoint & Co. High-rise offices and complicated client meetings. Bull markets and selling stocks. Performance reviews disguised as rites of passage.
What could easily be a dry procedural instead captivates thanks to a sharp ensemble cast and the volatile personal dynamics - sex-fueled, drug-riddled, corrupted ambition - that unfold between young employees and their superiors alike.
The Foucaultian-Industry Connection
So, we return to Harper’s quote. Is this truly a showcase of meritocracy?
French philosopher Michel Foucault spent much of the twentieth century interrogating systems that claim neutrality while quietly reinforcing hierarchy. For Foucault, power does not simply flow from the top down; it embeds itself within institutions, shaping how individuals understand success, belonging, and even themselves. Systems produce subjects who internalize their rules, then strive to reproduce them in the hope of legitimacy.
So how might Foucauldian thought help explain the core tensions of Industry? What does that suggest about the future its characters are building for themselves?
How Industry Aligns With Focaultian Philsophy
“I don't feel that it is necessary to know exactly what I am. The main interest in life and work is to become someone else that you were not in the beginning.”
In other words, Foucault sees freedom not as discovering who you “really are,” but as remaining open to transformation.
Industry’s first season follows young bankers competing for permanent positions, each believing that adaptability and effort will be rewarded. But by its fourth season, the show had moved beyond initiation and into consequence. Years of ambition have caught up with these characters as they cement themselves into the lives they’ve built and the systems they’ve helped sustain. Change is no longer aspirational; it is costly, and often involuntary.
“He who is subjected to a field of visibility… becomes the principle of his own subjection.”
In other words, Foucault describes modern power as something we enforce upon ourselves.
Consider Rishi. He’s introduced as a successful and confident trader and thrives on recognition, success, and control. His vulgarity is tolerated so long as he performs (and he does). But Rishi’s downfall is not at the fault of Pierpoint alone. He’s a victim of his own hubris. Gambling, addiction, and deceit are not as a product of the system, but because of his participation within it. By Season 4, Rishi is forced to confront the path he has chosen, discovering too late that mastery of a system does not exempt one from its discipline. In seeking validation, he subjects himself entirely.
“I'm no prophet. My job is making windows where there were once walls.”
In other words, Foucault does not offer prescriptions for the future; he offers ways of seeing.
Harper once asks, “Isn’t it lucky no one is ever satisfied?” She takes morality into her own hands, creating openings where others see immovable barriers. From the first episode, she enters Pierpoint without credentials or connections. She truly relies on some naive yet assured belief that access is not limited by preconceived barriers.
But Harper’s “windows” come at a cost. Because it's a tragic truth that, to never be satisfied is to never be free. Her relentless pursuit of systems already in motion destabilizes institutions and people alike, often leaving damage in her wake. Harper does not dismantle systems of power; she reveals their fractures again and again, trapped in a cycle of insight and consequence. Human nature will always gravitate toward control. It is up to the individual to decide how their knowledge is utilized, and at what price.
“The strategic adversary is fascism… the fascism in us all… that causes us to love power, to desire the very thing that dominates and exploits us.”
In other words, Foucault warns that the most dangerous form of power is the one we willingly reproduce.
As Industry continues into its fourth season, it moves beyond finance into the intersection of capital, technology, and politics. Those who shape systems hold the most influence. No character embodies this more fully than Henry Muck. Born into privilege and power, Henry’s access spans these essential political, financial, and technological spheres. As such, his desire for influence is not purely strategic - it is existential.
Henry’s involvement with Tender offers him an opportunity not simply to disrupt, but to possess power for its own sake. He does not resist hierarchy; he romanticizes it. In doing so, Henry proves Foucault’s most unsettling claim: the desire for dominance survives most effectively when it feels like destiny.
“We demand that sex speak the truth… the deeply buried truth about ourselves.”
In other words, Foucault argues that sex is not merely instinctual, but a framework through which power interprets desire.
Yasmin has long used sexuality as leverage, a means of asserting control in environments that consistently undermine her. While her skills and connections are strong on their own, desirability remains the currency through which she is most often successful in her efforts for power. But this strategy comes at a cost.
Haley's arrival in Season 4 complicates this dynamic. Like Yasmin, Haley employs desirability to gain access. However, Hayley does so without the guilt or mental prowess that Yasmin has displayed; she’s rid of that illusion. Where Yasmin seeks validation, Haley treats sex as a transaction. The result is not rivalry, but exposure. A foil, in many ways. Industry reveals how desire becomes legible within a system that claims meritocracy, yet quietly rewards adaptation over authenticity.
So, Is Knowledge Truly Power?
Industry does not ask whether meritocracy exists. It asks us to determine why people might believe in their abilities as a form of adaptation (again and again) in an image that masks meritocracy.
Work Cited:
The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1: An Introduction (Foucault, Michel)