Elysium and its government
Caroline Choiniere
Elysium' Government
The government was a democracy with a caste system built in. There were people of power, they were the citizens of Elysium. The caste system was obvious when the people that lived there had generations of family on the floating city. The people that live on Elysium stay on Elysium. The same goes for the poor who don't have enough money or power to get to Elysium.
Purpose and Goals of the Government
The governments first and foremost priority is to the citizens of Elysium. Then it is to Earths citizens. The government doesn't meet the needs of the people, there is a great example in the beginning of the movie. Matt Damon is working and is locked into one of the mechanism chambers at the factory. He ends up developing a fatal case of radiation poisoning. The robots, there are no available doctors, gave him a set of pills and told him how long he had to live. In Elysium, the people there have healing beds and they are only accessible to those citizens.
The Social Contract
The social contract is ridiculously off balanced. Healing beds are the prize between the two societies and are also the cause of much of the strife. Matt Damon had previously gotten in trouble with the police because he had been trying to raid a ship that was coming from Elysium. The thing that is different is that he was in love with a woman and her daughter was sick. He needed a healing bed for the daughter and really has nothing else to lose. He turns out to be the leader of the revolution after a job to grab the healing beds went wrong. He ended up overthrowing the government and was able to start to heal the Earth's remaining population.
Executive, Judicial, Legislative
The executive branch is not very well shown. There is a President and a Secretary of Defense, but they both only defend the Elysian citizens and care about their own power.
The judicial branch really applies to the secretary of defense and the robot police. Delacourt interpreted the law and the robot police are the ones who act on them.
The legislative branch wasn't really well represented. John Carlyle could be considered to have "made" the legislative branch. He created Elysium and all the rules/programs that Elysium runs on.
Government Longetivity
This government won't last very long, I give it a max of 3 years. The government structure and the people will eventually be greedy and want more and more.