Fontaine The Pusher

* See also ADAM_Addled and the ADAM-Bomb
* See also Fontaine
* See also ADAM
* See also Booze_And_Drugs ... ADAM_Bootlegging
* See also Fontaine_Wasnt_Al_Capone
==Fontaine The SocioPath==
Yes, Fontaine was out to take over Rapture ( disrupt it enough to seize control ) and ADAM was HIS product. Fontaine likely knew very well that he was pushing the equivalent of crack/meth onto the population.
SO, It wasn't 'social tensions', it was an orchestrated campaign of destabilizing/destroying of Rapture's Society with intent. Mass Addiction would assure physical and mental collapse - perfect 'canon fodder' for manipulation for societal disruption.
Short term profits for him were less important than THE BIG SCORE, once he took over Rapture. Like Drug Pushers do, he would distribute his drugs 'at cost' (or less) to get Citizens Hooked on his addictive poison. Mentally affected people are easier to 'Con'.
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 'Poor' People Buying Those Early and Expensive ADAM Gimmicks is a Bit Problematical 
Normal people adapt, and Rapture's people were supposed to be better than average. Objectivism stresses Self-Responsibility. If ADAM-use brought insanity and disfigurement, most people would avoid it.
First long-term effects would be upon people in more influential positions who could afford expensive ADAM Products. Apparently it was 'still too few' to make the Public aware.
Later expand that into the Consumer levels of use ( where Fontaine supposedly grew so rich to diversify so much ). Still ADAM is an expense few "poor" people might hardly afford - unless Fontaine MADE it cheap. While the ADAM supply was stable, the side-effects supposedly didn't manifest (as much).
There are ~ 3 months after Fontaine 'dies' and Ryan is reconstructing Fontaine Futuristics. Shortages at that time would 'key off' more of the "ADAM-Sickness" in the user base, and precipitate more unstable people.
Chemically destabilized people more easily fall for Atlas's empty promises of non-solutions, and are talked into murdering fellow citizens.
Ryan is perhaps desiring to 'Make a Better Product", but then so soon the Terrorism rips into the city's Stability and people are scrambling for survival.
Bombs then go off, there is a clamor by Citizens to get ADAM to protect themselves in a Terrorism Emergency, there is a mass shortage.
Users addicted to ADAM, Shortage of ADAM, the side-effects bring more violent insanity, and it accelerates.
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The Poor, and Poverty, and 'The Out Of Work' :
Cliche 'Protests' demanding to be able to Leave Rapture ... 
So what THEN accounts for all these 'Poor' people who (story vague) now demand Rapture become a welfare state ?
Let us consider that years of ADAM-Addiction may have disabled/compromised more than a few of the Citizenry ( That Poisoning could have been intentional by Fontaine, with the goals he had ... ) Unstable People who couldn't/wouldn't work ...We have many homeless people today who don't want to follow even the permissive rules our 'so enlightened' society imposes upon welfare cases. People of those times had a general disparagement of 'bums'.
You shouldn't need contrived Class Warfare to destroy the place. But such logic didn't seem to work for what the story the gamewriters WANTED to happen. Mean ole Ryan and his Philosophy HAD to be the Cause - It had to ALREADY be a Dystopia. They didn't WANT to figure a more logical way to have similar results. 
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The Situation : STABLE :
The ending of Rapture's 'Construction' was many years earlier (~1951) than the Kashmir Incident, when Fontaine/Atlas began their terrorist offensive (at the very end of 1958). Up to that point, and within those intervening years, societal adjustments had already accommodated whatever impact that 'repurposing' of employment had taken place.
Consider that Rapture existed 1946 to 1958 fairly normally ( including whatever pseudo-Crash had happened years earlier (1952?) AND apparently was recovered from ). You needed all levels of people to do keep Rapture running. They can't ALL assume to be "bosses", and someone has to still do the manual work ( even with latest automation/labor savings methods ). A difference with The Surface is : There is no huge hinterland to pull in unskilled/semi-skilled labor to depress the wages. A decade had already 'gone by' under Ryan's Philosophy - So Why hadn't it already have come apart ? The 'go-getters'/adaptable people of that era ( and moreso the ones who the writers said came to Rapture ) would have handled 'whatever' up to The "BIO SHOCK". Rapture was STABLE before the time the Terrorist attacks brought Chaos to the City ( and THAT then was soon followed by Mass violent ADAM-insanity happening combined with the upheaval of an Atlas egged on %27civil war%27 ).
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Manual Labor ? ( for Rapture's Construction )
Construction With Rivet Guns and Wrenches Tightening Bolts ?
Oh, there would be Workers - Just not the cliche class-warfare fodder the writers simplistically injected into their story.
The majority of the assembly in a deep underwater environment would a 'far taller order' than that. So many tasks would be tech operations, not turning wrenches. Machinery involvement is even beyond what you might do on The Surface - due to the extreme environment. Likely new Ryan Industries Tech and Skills being used ( very little underwater construction in the World at that point ). Pre-assembly greatly simplifies what had to go on 'down there'.
Deep Underwater Construction activity - It is High Tech work - automation and remote control - machine operators. Technicians to maintain the machines.
Rapture would be build from prefab components made on land for high-efficiency/required-quality/minimizing-expense. Assembly would be mostly being done up near/on the Ocean surface ( via less-esoteric/less-difficult methods in shallow water ).
SO most 'workers' involved in Rapture's building either never got within 1000 miles of it (the land factories), OR worked at the Ocean's surface and never went below to even see it. Ryan also wasn't stupid enough to burden Rapture with all those eventual 'soon to be' Out of Work men.
The Technical Construction Workers who were to be IN Rapture had skills later applicable to City Maintenance and other businesses.
SO "Out of Work Construction Workers" ??? NO, ADAM-poisoned people was a far more likely source of the eventual 'poverty' in Rapture.
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Grunt Workers Need Not Apply ...
Ryan's 'paranoia' about inappropriate people imbalancing his new forever home (and greatest achievement) would be enough to have him find a way to preserve the Secrecy of what was really going on. Cover stories of all kinds, 'need to know' restrictions, etc ... The fleet of ships went back and forth, and I doubt he had all those crews killed to preserve the secrecy. The obfuscation (North_Atlantic_Project) would be many many layers deep ( starting with so much pre-fab component work being done distributed across the country ).
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Opportunity
The physical and mental effects of ADAM-use and addiction is more than enough to cause plenty of 'poverty' - and that in more than just some 'construction workers' --- for it to be such a SHOCK to Rapture's society.
In so much of The Surface World, there are so many things that keep you poor even though you don't want to be.
Rapture has removed many of those impediments.
Poor People who can't get jobs ?
Cleaning Toilets ? - You can 'make a bundle' at such work when few other people want to do it.
I consider most of the "poor" that the game uses really being addicts to ADAM, which has debilitated them, rather than there actually being a lack of opportunity to work ( and the people in Rapture BEING largely go-getters ).
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