"The Platform" features a futuristic world where convicts are sent to The Hole, a vertical prison with two inmates per floor, or what the Administration likes to call a "self-management center." Once a day, a platform with an enormous array of meticulously prepared dishes descends from Level 0 to those below through an opening on each floor. Inmates have exactly two minutes to feed on what the upper levels leave them and at the start of every month, they are transferred to another level. If everyone only takes what they need to survive, enough food would reach even the lowest levels. But in a system of "every person for themselves," those on the lower levels starve, resulting in cannibalism and murder as means of survival.
(Spoilers Ahead)
The protagonist, Goreng voluntarily joins The Hole, oblivious to what it entails, because he believed solitary confinement would force him to quit smoking and read his book, Don Quixote (each person is allowed to bring one item into the Hole). After completing his assigned six months, he would be awarded an accredited diploma. Goreng is a symbol of broken civility assimilating into the Hole's animalistic culture. Initially maintaining his proper self, he picks at the leftovers of those above him in disgust while his cellmate Trimagasi shoves food into his mouth by the handful. Eventually, as he experiences the torment of hunger, he falls in line with the system he once abhorred.
The norm here is that inmates only keep to their level. Those below them are disparaged as Tirmigasi spits on their food and throws slurs at them while those above them are expected to do the same. Food, a fleeting currency of power, belongs to those on the level it's on and those at the top have the power to dictate how much goes down the hierarchy of the Hole.
Soon, Goreng's second cellmate, Imoguiri, who previously worked for the Administration, voluntarily joins the hole to help "foster a spontaneous sense of solidarity," attempting to create a rationing system. But inmates would rather gorge on their short-lived privilege, having experienced the same suffering of those beneath them, than create a permanent system that makes them equals.
But Goreng argues that "change never happens spontaneously," so he and Baharat, his third cellmate, travel down the platform to help ration food, using violence against those who fall out of line. As a message to the Administration and symbol of their revolt, they send a child up to Level 0 on the platform. The child, unaffected by the power-hungry struggle of capitalist society, is a symbol of innocence and hope for a better world.
It's interesting to note that "The Platform" puts an emphasis on individual responsibility. Goreng holds Tirmigasi responsible for his actions, not the circumstances or Administration, but the individuals propelling the corrupt system. "Change never happens spontaneously" because the powerful will never willingly give up their power. However, only those in a position of privilege have the power to create change here. Goreng is only able to help ration food when he is on the advantageous level of 6, demonstrating the impossibility of social mobility without a willingness to give up power.
Essentially, the Hole is an allegory of capitalist society. The random assignment of inmates to different levels each month parallels the predetermined power and social status of society's individuals. The inability of those on the lower levels to move up parallels society's rigid social mobility with societal systems built by and for those in power. Those on the upper levels refusing to ration food parallels society's privileged refusal to give up their power because it benefits them, turning a blind eye to the sufferings of those below them. Inevitably, the system ends in a bloodbath.
