Instead, because she is attractive, the panel offers her a job appearing as one of the sex workers in the state-sponsored pornography feed business force-fed to all of the bicyclists (remember that people are forced to watch a certain amount of content and have to pay to dismiss content. In fact, if they try to close their eyes while mandatory content plays, a repetitive alarm sound repeats until the person opens their eyes again).

She begins to cry but is encouraged to consider how much better her life will be and after minutes of enthusiastic clapping and crowd approval from all of the avatars, she relents and agrees to become a video porn star.

I would be surprised if this wasn't a reference to Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto:

"It [cash payment] has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom – free trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation."

And please do not get this twisted, I am NOT a Communist. However, there is a massive difference between Marx and Engels critique of the ethics of capitalism and what the Soviet Union turned Communism into.

I myself am generally a capitalist, but I refuse to engage in stupid straw-person debates.

If you believe that Lenin and Stalin actually had the best interests of workers in mind believe the conventional wisdom on Karl Marx writings. Truth is, at the base of Marx is the idea that workers should matter more than the mere maximization of profit or that workers should at least be allowed to decide the ratios (share ownership in the means of production).

Anyway, Abi, despite having clearly zero desire to be a sex-worker, values cash payment enough to accept becoming a cog in the machine of oppression because she thinks (after a lifetime of conditioning) that freedom lies in progress rather than in dignity.

I have suggested many times before that Black Mirror uses future technologies and dystopia to create distance between ourselves and what are really metaphorical reflections of ourselves and Western culture NOW.

15 million merits can clearly be read as a Marxist critique of Western notions of the American Dream (if you work hard enough in America, you can succeed). Obviously, what this episode calls into question is what we allow "success" to be defined as and what "success" the system generates or makes available to us (watch the Kardashians on the E channel if you need more insight into what I mean).

If you live in a world where you will do what you least want to do in order to achieve better access to things and places, maybe what is desired (what constitutes success) has become a worthless and empty vessel (like confederate money or David Duke campaign posters).

It seems very clear to me that "15 Million Merits" is making the argument that what modern capitalism generates as "success" is either material comfort provided at the cost of being exploited for the pleasure of others or being provided with the means to enjoy (and almost bask in) the exploitation of others.

This one thread that ties virtually every Black Mirror episode together is that almost everything capitalism manufactures as "success" either turns into pain for the bearer or into the ability to take surplus enjoyment in watching the suffering of others.

In other words, what I think Brooker might be saying is that what we often call "success" is really both participating in propaganda and also participation in the exploitation of ourselves and participation in taking enjoyment in the exploitation of others.

The Failure of Half-Measures

After seeing the woman he loves (and physical love seems also unavailable in this society which has reduced intimacy only to porn and talking between or during shifts on the bicycles) accept becoming a porn star rather than return to the world of the bikes (him), Bing has a bit of a breakdown.

Bing has no more merits (he used them all on her), so he can't stop the porn from playing on the screens in his room and ultimately has to see Abi in "action" which results in him attempting to break the monitor walls of his room. When the glass of one of the walls cracks he takes and hides a sliver of the glass and quickly calms down (seems to come up with a plan).

He recommits to building up his credits and starts practicing a dance routine to take his own chance on "Hot Shots." Eventually, he builds up his credits enough to purchase a ticket for himself and appears on the show. He does his dance routine (which goes really well), pulls out the shard of glass, and threatens to kill himself on the air if he is not allowed to speak

I suspect because they feel denying his speech would call into question the fairness of the system, they allow him to speak and Bing gives a very effective critique of the unfairness of the social structure.

The judges wait for a few seconds, and then offer Bing a job doing a show where he would be paid to give new weekly rants, all while holding a shard of glass to his neck, on the main feed channel (commodifying and emasculating revolution a la the Architect scene).

Bing chooses to take the deal (showing that Bing was no different than Abi) and we see him in his new, much larger, but still sterile and lonely room take solace in a much better wall display (1080 P, 4D?).

This reminds me of the classic scene in the brilliant movie Network when Arthur Jensen (Ned Beatty) confronts Howard Beale (Peter Finch) with the "Hot Shots" panel representing Jensen.