Amity is a small resort town in decline. Due to the changing nature of the economy, its inhabitants have become increasingly desperate and increasingly nihilistic in their economic outlook. Nihilism, broadly speaking, is the belief that life has no true meaning and thus nothing matters. As working-class people in a beach community, the townsfolk of Amity have come to see capitalism as system that they have no ability to influence, fueling their nihilistic belief that nothing matters. The residents of Amity demonstrate this mindset more and more overtly as the story progresses.

Everyone in Amity, including the mayor, knows that the town has no future. The town depends on rich summer tourists to fund them through the tough winter. Amity is caught in a loop from which it cannot hope to escape, a capitalist death drive which destroys any potential ambition and hollows out the optimistic core of the town. Amity exists purely to fuel the capitalist system that has already abandoned it, and its people work for no purpose beyond surviving from one day to the next.

When the shark attacks begin, the locals have no choice but to continue life as usual.