Capitalism, a Love Story is Difficult to Love
By Elliott Gorelick
Politics Editor
Watching Capitalism, a Love Story by Michael Moore, I could not adapt the necessary suspension of disbelief to truly enjoy the movie. The movie was a well-crafted mixture of film clips, Moore’s own family movies, interviews and vintage Michael Moore grandstanding.
Time and again, Moore arrives at a building to be confronted by security guards and/or police letting him know that he won’t be allowed to film. Memorable scenes include an abrupt click as the office of Henry Paulsen (former Secretary of the Treasury under Bush ) hangs up on him without a word and Moore wrapping AIG’s New York HQ in crime scene tape. But these antics don’t change the fact that I was just not convinced that the central premise of the film, “Capitalism is inherently evil,” works.
Moore hits you over the head with that message invoking no less than two Catholic priests and a bishop to lend credence to this argument, but it just doesn’t ring true. (I think Moore, growing up Catholic and apparently still a believer, overestimates the moral authority that clergy have for his audience.) The problem is that a view presented by Moore’s friend, Wallace Shawn, (inexplicably relied on here to present the economics 101 explanation of capitalism) is fairly accurate if simplistic – it’s all about choice and using dollars to vote for what things are made.
How this scheme to allocate resources will inevitably lead to a society that impoverishes the masses for the benefit of plutocracy is not explained. Ultimately the disconnect is probably in the fact that the correct quote is NOT, “Money is the root of all evil,” but rather, “The love of money is the root of all evil,” and there’s plenty of ‘love’ on display, but it seems human nature is more to blame than an economic system.
So will this movie change anyone’s mind? I doubt it; not even the people losing their homes seemed to be ready to launch a revolution. Mostly they were upset that they had come out on the short end instead of ready to overthow America’s political economic system. (A majority of the dispossessed seemed to be conservatives). People on the left of the political spectrum are likely to be very receptive to Moore’s rally cry to change the system, but they were already convinced anyway.
Watching this movie is more like watching a political stemwinder than reasoned debate. So if you like Moore’s message, there’s every reason to vote with your dollars and enjoy the show.
This article appeared in the October 15, 2009 issue of Synapse.