The Labubu phenomenon: How a toy became a symbol of late-stage capitalism

What is a Labubu doll?

Labubu is a fictional character designed by Kasing Lung and produced by the collectible toy brand POP MART (a Chinese company known for selling ‘blind box’ art toys). Labubu dolls are small, grotesquely cute figurines, often limited in number and sold in sealed packaging so the buyer doesn’t know which specific figure they’ll get.

Despite being simple plastic toys, Labubu dolls are often resold at exorbitant prices in secondary markets, sometimes hundreds or thousands of dollars more than the retail price—driven purely by collector demand, artificial scarcity and speculative trading.

Why is Labubu doll a symbol of capitalism?

From a civil services and socio-economic perspective, the Labubu doll exemplifies key features of late-stage capitalism, which Marxist socialism deeply critiques:

1. Commodification of emotion and art

• Capitalism turns even emotion, childhood nostalgia, and art into commodities
• What was once a symbol of creativity or sentiment (toys) becomes a profit-generating product
• Labubu isn’t valued for utility, but for exchange value, exactly as Marx warned in Das Kapital

2. Artificial scarcity & consumer manipulation

• POP MART uses the “blind box” marketing strategy to create suspense, which fuels compulsive buying
• Like casino machines, buyers are lured into repetitive purchases just to get one rare figure
• This is planned obsolescence and scarcity, used to maximise profit, not social welfare

3. Inequality in access

• The dolls are mass-produced at low cost but sold at luxury-like prices in resale market
• This reflects how capitalism prioritizes the ability to pay over need or equity, deepening social inequality

4. Speculative economy over real value

• Labubu dolls are often bought not for use, but for speculative resale—a metaphor for capitalism’s detachment from real production.
• Like shares or NFTs, their value depends on market hype, not intrinsic quality.

Marxist critique: How Labubu contradicts socialism

Karl Marx, in his vision of socialism and communism, emphasised:

• Abolition of class-based ownership of production
• End to alienation of labour and commodification of human creativity
• Fair and equal distribution of resources

Now contrast that with the Labubu phenomenon:

Civil Services implication: Why should an administrator care?

As a civil servant in a democratic socialist state like India (Directive Principles in Constitution), understanding such cultural-economic trends helps in:

• Consumer protection policies against manipulative marketing
• Awareness of global capitalism’s social impacts, especially on youth
• Designing regulations for digital marketplaces and speculative pricing
• Promoting indigenous, sustainable and ethical alternatives in markets flooded with exploitative foreign models