Chapter Three of Jaws lays the groundwork for the story's main conflict between capitalism and altruism. The latter is an ethical doctrine that says individuals have a moral obligation to help others even at the cost of their own self-interest. Capitalism is driven by the imperative to generate wealth and operates within a framework that by necessity - in Marxist terms - subjugates the proletariat for the good of the bourgeoisie.
Superficially, these two opposing ideologies are represented by the characters of two of Amity's public servants: the chief of police and the mayor. In fact, both men are driven by self-interest. Brody's desire to close the beaches comes not from a true sense of altruism but from a sense of duty ("Suppose - just suppose - we don't say a word, and somebody else gets hit by that fish. What then? My ass is in a sling. I'm supposed to protect people around here, and if I can't protect them from something, the least I can do is warn them that there is a danger.") Larry Vaughn professes to be speaking for the community at large ("The Fourth of July isn't far off, and that's the make-or-break weekend. We'd be cutting our own throats."), but when challenged admits to a personal interest ("I'm under a lot of pressure from my partners.")
Brody's capitulation is secured when Vaughn threatens to remove him from his job. Vaughn weights his argument with specious reasoning, perversely suggesting that the right thing to do is to keep the beaches open ("...if you won't do what's right, we'll put someone in your job who will."). Brody's decision is really a pragmatic rather than a moral one.
A lot of critics have noted the parallels between Jaws and Henrik Ibsen's play An Enemy of the People. In Ibsen's play Thomas Stockman, the doctor of a health spa on the south coast of Norway, discovers that the waters which provide the town's main source of income are contaminated. When he tries to make the information public, everyone turns against him. In Act One the town's mayor makes a statement that could well have come out of Larry Vaughn's mouth: "The individual ought undoubtedly to acquiesce in subordinating himself to the community - or, to speak more accurately, to the authorities who have the care of the community's welfare." The play ends on a note of ambiguity with Stockman, now completely ostracised by his fellow citizens, declaring: "The strongest man in the world is he who stands alone."
In Benchley's novel Brody is drained of all physical strength at the end of the book and screams "an ejaculation of hopelessness" as he anticipates his own death. His survival is not earned - as it is in the movie - by an act of heroism, and his solitude - far from being a symbol of moral integrity - is an indication of what awaits him on shore.
The machinations of Amity's local politics and the murky morality that feeds them were, of course, being played out in the national political arena. The Watergate break in took place in 1972 and was in the news all through that year as Benchley was working on his first draft.
