[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeROnVUADj0[/youtube]
Say what you will about Michael Moore (no really, go ahead and say it – use swear words if you like, I won’t be offended), his movies can definitely cause a stir. Lauded or loathed, his new film “Capitalism: A Love Story” will no doubt do the same. In fact, in the days leading up to and following it’s release, the film and it’s creator have already drawn some attention.
To be honest, I don’t like that. Not because of my personal feelings toward the guy, but because I always dislike seeing misinformation sweep across the populous, and there are far too many of us that seem to trust the things we see in the movies.
In the interest of trust, I encourage you to look into the following links and decide for yourself. In the interest of the greater good, I encourage you to download the bootleg rather than seeing it in the theater…
… Just kidding.
LINKS:
1. Some of the disinformation I was talking about.
3. A practical example of how Moore conflates Capitalism and Corporatism.
I hope by encouraging me to not believe everything I see in movies you are EXCLUDING Star Wars…
he is a silly person. he’s a good example of a person that can be absolutely against what i love, and know to be true, but is still enjoyable to watch.
his movies are well executed, and entertaining.
i’ve heard he gets a lot of threats on his life. i hope not, poor guy.
what i like about him, is that even though his message is against my message (if i were to have a message) he goes after everyone, not equally, but clinton is brought up in bowling for columbine, in this, it looks like obama will be brought up, both in a negative way. now i site these two people, because it’s all i need. of course he’ll bring up the right wing, but for him to attack the left who is in power, is respectable. not like the rest, who can want bush to fail, and can compare him to hitler, but get angry when obama is hoped to fail, and compared to hitler.
silly silly man.
There’s some level of irony that the system he attacks is the same one that had made him obscene amounts of money.
If this were Star Wars then that would make Moore, Jabba the Hut! Seriously though, Moore has given us one great thing, the surprise in your face shock, street interview. Someday, I hope to us the technique on Moore himself.
I’m curious Michael R, what exactly is “corporatism” and how do differentiate it from your definition of “capitalism” ? Do you think a difference exists between the textbook definitions and what exists in America today ?
Corporatism is defined as “the control of a state or organization by large interest groups.” which is the core of what the film is about. Moore assumes that corporatism is a natural outcome of our capitalist economic structure, but that is just not true. In fact, the less influence a government has over it’s society’s market, the less any corporate interest would have the incentive and ability to effect governmental change.
The complaints of the film (mostly) are legitimate, but the real solution isn’t to throw even more governmental agencies and oversight committees and the like at them, but to reign in the size and scope of the government. Why that specifically? Because this would eliminate the need to ever have to worry about the ills of corporatism again.
Large corporations have much greater means and ability to affect change in our government than any citizen’s interest group, which can be a scary thought when you consider that, while corporations cannot legally force citizens to do anything, the government can. The more control, influence, and access we allow the government into our lives, the more we open ourselves up to the very issues Moore addresses.
To summarize Michael’s point, if the system allows $5M in lobbying to reap $100M in benefits, don’t be surprised when people do it. Remove governments ability to give those benefits to corporations and they lose all incentive.
so without government oversight then no lobbying money will be needed. makes sense, but how does that lead to the elimination of the need to worry about corporatism? just because they aren’t calling the shots in legislation doesn’t mean they won’t be calling the shots in the economy. so with the recent round of banking shenanigans, how exactly would taking oversight away make that go any better?
How has the “oversight” done so far?
If there’s no governmental outlet to manipulate the market, then corporate interests have no way of forcing anyone to do anything. If you can’t force your way to success, then you have to win customers the old fashioned way – by doing right by your customers. The way communication is these days, any business has to compete on a global scale for customers, and the freer the trade with other countries, the more access to global products we could have, the more wealth we would see spreading throughout the world.
There is no solution that will resolve every problem, of course, but the problems would be much easier to deal with and a lot less unfair if we let the market alone.
^That’s me, BTW.
that doesn’t address the financial industry of the past few years though. the answer to how has the oversight done so far is that there wasn’t enough oversight. the banks were fighting for customers with a blind eye towards the risk involved, further lack of oversight only leaves a bigger pile of worthless asset for the government to buy in an industry that’s too big to fail (also thanks to lack of regulation/oversight).
How much oversight is enough? How much oversight will we rely on and be let down by before we just take the power to take advantage of people away? As to the banks, do you honestly suppose that the CEOs of these major, major financial institutions were stupid enough to do what they did without the expectation of the bailout that they got? The “too big to fail” argument is idiotic, and it supports the corporatism that is doing so much damage to this country.
I think the title and subject of the film ought to have been “Plutonomy,” the term Moore pulled out of a CitiGroup memo by Ajay Kapur, who defined it like this:
[T]he top 1% of households also account for 33% of net worth, greater than the bottom 90% of households put together. It gets better (or worse, depending on your political stripe) – the top 1% of households account for 40% of financial net worth, more than the bottom 95% of households put together.
That’s the problem. Because of plutonomy, financial markets and the U.S. government are responding to the needs of the top one percent.
So what’s the best way to fix that? Note: I used the word “best”, not “easiest” or “most horrible” so Governmental Interference is not the answer.
In the film, Michael Moore points out that until relatively recently, the rich were subject to much higher marginal income tax rates. And lo and behold, they were still rich without turning the economy inside out and causing the financial sector to collapse like a house of cards.
People are remarkable resilient, but just because you COULD doesn’t mean you SHOULD.