Edit: I didn't mean to imply in my earlier comment that the allegory was the entirety of the story, only one aspect of it. It is "Part of" the message, where the conflict of abandoning the practical utopia, and the cost of such an action, are central. Resolving the "utility" in abandoning such a reprehensible cycle rather than acting to end it is what I'm trying to puzzle through, within the lens of the story/author anyway.

My takeaway was that the story serves to “simplify” the effects of an exploitative system down to the suffering of one child. From the meta-narrative standpoint, the story is putting a more recognizable human face, a more relatable scale on the exploitation. If I’m not way off base here, it serves as a direct analogy to the wide-scale suffering caused by the exploitative capital system for the purpose of this thought experiment, this allegory. Who walks away from the injustice? What do they have to face to reject that system?

I don’t think I’m articulating it very well but that’s kind of my point - the analogy is a distilled version of the conflicts we experience here. No doubt most of us are still living in Omelas, decrying the injustices heaped upon the unfortunate child but unwilling (not knowing what it means to?) to leave. That the situation is simplified from a global structure used to perpetuate exploitation (of the global south, or otherwise) to the suffering of a single child is to make an immediate and visceral analogy.

I have no idea if someone, unaware of this history of exploitation and imperialism, would come to such a conclusion without outside context, but I think my analysis is fair. As for “walking away from Omelas” in today’s society, I’m unsure what exactly that looks like in a way that will help to end the suffering of the metaphorical child. Is “walking away” as an individual more justifiable? Where does one go? Is there something to be done about the system of suffering?