Capitalism: A Love Story Review

So last night I decided to go to see said movie (with my delightful Liberal friend), and came away with many interesting thoughts. The review will probably feel a little scatterbrained, but then again the movie wasn't so coherent either.

Moore starts off the movie by juxtaposing the reasons for the fall of Rome with America today. The reason for this collapse falls at the feet of capitalism, which he describes as evil at the end of the movie. Of course it's debatable if an economic system can have descriptive words attached to it. I guess I'll just proceed with some things I agreed with, and some things I didn't.

Firstly, I do agree that most people in our society are quite selfish. The lust for materials can be quite disheartening. Clearly, a ton of people are not happy, which is puzzling, as they seem to have so much. Maybe possessions and materials do not provide one with happiness. Instead of blaming the collapse on the economy on human greed, which seems much more likely than capitalism, Moore instead pits the evil rich against the worthy poor. Offhandedly he admits that the reason the poor allow capitalism is because they hope they can become rich pricks one day too, kind of taking away their virtuosity....

Moore uses a lot of religious iconography in making his claims. He states that Jesus wouldn't have stood for so much economic disparity, and I'm inclined to believe that. In Judaism one is supposed to give away 10 percent of their salary to charity, let the poor eat from your fields for free every 7 years, and during harvest time leave the corners of your field for the poor. Money is shown to be a corrupting power in the bible, eg the prohibition by a king not to collect horses, in fears he'll be consumed by materialism. Being humble is a virtue, and recognizing that G-d gives one his money keeps one in the proper perspective. But who needs all this, science,the human mind, and unlicensed sexual liberty can make a much better society...

Obviously the stories he brings are heartbreaking, but they must be taken with a grain of salt. If you can't pay for your property you don't deserve it, even if it seems nice to let people live there for free. The philosophical concept of liberty does not allow emotion to get the better of reason. It does also not allow the government to take everyone's money and give it to the poor (only to a certain extent).

Moore yearns to go back to the good old days where one man could raise his family, and you get a car every 3 years. He actually sounds very conservative here as he wants to return to the past in loo of the present. Of course times have changed for people working in car factories. Moore admits America didn't have to compete with Germany and Japan in making cars back then. Now that they do, how does he expect people to get paid the same as they did back then? He rails against Gm (and the air industry) for paying their workers so badly, but fails to mention they lose tons of money. How does he expect these companies to run with thousands more workers, pay them lavish salaries, and still stay in business?

Moore praises unions as the greatest things ever. Like ordinary people aren't greedy. Sure seemed that way to me last summer when the garbage men in Toronto went on strike during a recession for higher wages. The fact of the matter is, industry is dying in America. Countries can build stuff for a lot cheaper than we can, and don't need to pay their workers nearly as much. We are becoming a society where we provide services domestically and internationally. And no offense to some of the workers, but they are not cared about for the simple reason that they can be easily replaced by people with similar skills. It's a lot harder to replace someone with a Harvard degree, which is why they get paid more...

His whole political shlock also makes little sense. Because Reagan's treasury secretary worked for Merrill Lynch means that a sinister conspiracy is in the works? Apparently so according to the conspiracy minded congresswoman he keeps on talking too. George Bush in a stroke of genius planned the whole economic collapse so Larry Summers could make Goldman Sachs the number one financial company on Wall Street. Moore claims the bailout stole taxpayers money, thank the Democratic Congress for that. I wonder what his thoughts are about the health care bill, which will 'steal' a trillion dollars of taxpayer money. I didn't agree with the bailouts either, simply because CAPITALISM would say that these companies should fail. Government intervention is allowing this to go on.

Moore then paints Obama as the heroic figure who so wants to change the world, but is being influenced against his will by Wall Street. Like he didn't get elected to the Senate with the help of rich and powerful people. Obama appointed a 'wall street' guy to be his treasury secretary too. Personally, I don't think that by Goldman Sachs giving him a 500 000 dollar donation, he'll suddenly pass a 700 billion dollar helping them. Maybe -Shocker- the bailout bill can help the common people.

He ends the movie by saying the people are rising up against the rich, to bad this is not even close to the truth. People in industrial towns need to realize the world is changing, and they need new skills. We've had to adjust before and we can do it again.

In summation, capitalism is not an evil system, it is people who are evil and greedy. Seen throughout the movie are examples of businesses where the CEO doesn't get more than the worker, and capitalism doesn't state there is anything wrong with that. Human greed and lack of compassion makes companies act in callous ways. If we want to save our economy, start by looking deep inside yourself, and realize that money isn't everything.