Snap, Crackle, and Popular Culture

** PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT THIS POSTING WAS PUBLISHED PRIOR TO HANNITY’S INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL MOORE**

I have just seen Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story. I did not pay to watch this film, and as such, I don’t think that anyone should pay to watch this film either. Doing so would just make Moore richer, and according to this movie, America should be moving away from making people, like him, richer.

Just like all of Moore’s movies, this is yet another one which presents his sensationalistic one-sidedness. At first I noticed that one of Paramount’s subsidiaries put this movie out. This is interesting to me, because the only interest that a company like Paramount would have in releasing a film like this, is nothing more than to make money. In other words, Paramount knows that Michael Moore’s films create controversy, and that people pay to learn about and become a part of controversy. In effect, this is an investment, to make money off of an anti-capitalistic movie- its an anti-capitalistic captialist investment. One should note that the total gross for this film thus far exceeds $5,000,000.00 which, granted, is not a lot of money for a feature film, but then again this is not a franchise film, nor a box office blockbuster. Rather, it is a near three hour twisted history lesson with amateur special effects.

To be fair, there were some interesting “factoids” which this movie brought to light that piqued my interest, but that’s not the purpose of this review. Rather, I think it is important to review the things which I witnessed the audience’s most animated responses. It is my belief that because Moore is good at mixing images with dialogue that are antagonistic to each other, he is able to manipulate and convey messages of his choosing. Additionally, there are other things that I think Moore did not give the audience a fair opportunity understand, and all of the aforementioned combined, plus some feeble minded movie-goers who take Moore’s word as gospel, makes for a heck of a social experiment.

On to the analysis…

At a point in the film, Moore convinces the audience that he is exposing greedy corporations because they are profiting off of the death of their employees. In other words, Moore explains how corporations take out insurance policies on their employees. When the employee dies, the corporation, as beneficiary, is paid according to the policy. This, juxtaposed with a family who lost a mother/wife that worked for one of these corporations and did not receive any money, makes the audience shreek in horror. Though, when one stops to think about the situation there really is nothing wrong with this because the corporation, as the employer, has an insurable interest in their employees. Why should the corporation’s rights under the insurance policy be impaired because the private individual, or the family, failed to take out its own private policy? The answer is: it shouldn’t. But, with all life insurance policies the owner of the policy and the policy provider have interests which are diametrically opposed. The policy provider hopes that the insured (the person who’s death will trigger the pay out) keeps living. This ensures the continuation of premium payments, and the prevention of the policy provider from having to pay out a large lump sum of money. On the other hand, the policy owner (who sometimes can be, and often is, the insured) is basically saying: Hey insurance company! I know how to beat you, all I have to do is die. This is the basic fundamental’s of life insurance. It is not as morbid of a concept as Moore makes it out to be, instead life insurance is an investment tool to protect those who rely on others, when that “other” is no longer there. It is a type of risk avoidance.

At various other points in the film, Moore “captures” several families who are going through foreclosure. Scenes of ejectment and eviction cause the audience to watch in shame. Moore, then uses these images and superimposes them with scenes of “greedy corporations.” The fallacy of all of this is that at no point does Mr. Moore assess any personal responsibly on the borrower/mortgagor for taking out a loan that they couldn’t afford- instead, it is the fault of predatory lenders, who, as it would seem from watching the film, forced families to buy houses that were unaffordable. At no point did it appear to me that any audience members saw that Mr. Moore was guilty for the same thing which he was proselytizing banks for. Michael Moore is making money off of people who are losing their homes by capturing their loss on video, and selling it to an audience. No where in the movie did Moore say that he would contribute any of his profits to the families who lost their homes and helped make his film sell. To me, this is just as egregious and exploitative.

Moore also faults businesses for going kaput. It would seem that he is almost suggesting that business is always supposed to be profitable. From the beginning Moore projects 50’s utopian images of the American worker. These images, taken together, capture the evolution of Horatio Alger’s dream, the American Dream. Moore then shows the results of failing businesses- that is, dilapidated neighborhoods, and the increase of the jobless. Subsequently, Moore calls for higher taxes for the rich, which mind you, it is the rich who create jobs, not the poor. This is another inconsistency of Moore’s because if you tax the rich, that is less money that the rich can use for things like: reinvestment into small closely held businesses, to buy products which takes laborer’s to create, or to purchase accessions which need to be installed by other skilled laborers. So much for Moore’s solution to unemployment.

Towards the end of the film, in humor, Moore rents a brinks truck and tries to perform a “citizen’s arrest” on entire Boards of Directors for some of the world’s largest banks. He tries to ask for our, the taxpayer’s money back, but is rejected and he is often escorted off private bank premises by security guards and police.

I do agree that Moore does raise some interesting issues: For instance, the relationship between Goldman Sachs and the approval and enactment of the $700,000,000,000.00 recovery act. But, again, this seven hundred billion dollar figure is actually a misrepresentation of what is needed to dilute toxic assets because most people do not consider the fact that not all of the assets which the money ($700bil) is being used to purchase, are toxic. Moore explains that the only reason that this bill was passed was due to fear mongering on behalf of the media, and corporate tycoons who had their hands in the pockets of big government.

Moore then goes to Washington to visit the constitution. He asks the security guard where he should check in the constitution to see where it guarantee’s a capitalistic financial system. This is just more misplaced humor because according to Moore, the security guard qualified as an expert on constitutional interpretation. The inference that people may have missed is that the constitution is a fundamental document of American democracy. The document promotes individual liberties and freedoms. Capitalism is the crystallization of free individuals and the ability of those individuals to determine on their own, how to spend or invest their money in a free society. Remember, their money, our money, your money, is a representation of the fruits of labor. In any other economic system, where there is government intervention, there is less freedom, and thus a more attenuated connection with the guarantees of the American constitution.

Over all though I agree with the general theme of this film and that is: People do some pretty bad things for a buck or two. Additionally, I am a strong believer that there is a price for everything. At the end of the film, Moore calls for a revolution. For someone with a networth exceeding $50 million dollars, this is a sick joke because Moore is not a revolutionary. Rather, he is someone who has been successful for taking advantage of a capitalistic system that allows him to reproduce his thoughts and images at a markup. To me, that is romantic.