Capitalism: A Love Story

[Bob George]

I'm sure most of you have heard about Michael Moore's new film, Capitalism: A Love Story. It has not been released yet but has been seen by film critics who gave mostly favourable reviews. A quote from the movie has already made headlines. "Capitalism is evil!" This is a quote from the movie made by Michael Moore. If you ask me, that is very troubling. Many, many people are going to see this movie and the most impressionable of them will come away thinking Capitalism is evil. But to that I ask, 'compared to what?' Capitalism is evil compared to what?

Capitalism is the best system so far developed by man that allows for maximum freedom and equal opportunity. Capitalism is purely the freedom to exchange goods and services without state intervention or management. Whether you exchange those goods and services for currency or labour or other goods and services. That's all it is. It's a very pure and good system. But when you have that type of system, and you also have big government power, that system can become corrupted.

If you have a big government with a lot of control, in a system where you can have very rich people with a lot of money, that's a recipe for disaster. The very rich can then buy off politicians who then execute their power to regulate and manage the economy in a way that benefits those already on top and doesn't allow those on the bottom to make their way to the top. That's kind of where America and a lot of the western world is headed.

A lot of people have made the criticism that we in the modern western world are heading towards socialism. But actually we are really heading more towards fascism. In socialism the government takes over and controls the means of production. But is fascism, private individuals still own the means of production but the government tells them what to do. It's a government-corporate cooperation. The country is owned by private individuals and operated by the government. That way the public has no electoral control over the owners. And that's where we are headed. Fascism, or as Mussolini said it should rather be called, Corporatism.

Corporatism is very far removed from Capitalism. Capitalism is a free market, corporatism is a controlled market. So I think Moore has targeted the wrong enemy. He thinks capitalism is the problem. It's not. The problem is corporatism. In the trailer for his movie, Moore mentions the corporate bailouts. Capitalists don't believe in corporate welfare. They believe that unsuccessful businesses who can't make a profit should fail. Otherwise the system doesn't function properly. What makes capitalism work is that people who work hard and run their businesses well succeed and those who don't fail.

But I'm interested in what people think. Are you with Michael Moore? Is capitalism an evil system that we need to be rid of? And what do we replace it with? What other system has ever worked as well as capitalism?

 

[Richard723]

Lower taxes, little gov't, free market. That works the best. The "capitalism" in america is a joke right now.
The founding fathers must be rolling in their graves. The republicans and democrats are full of crap.
Libertarian all the way ;].

 

[Bob George]

Well this thread didn't seem to get much attention (Except from Richard who is right on the money. Well said) so I don't know that bumping it is worth it. But I have something I'd like to say about Michael Moore, his disdain for capitalism and his notion that we need a democratically run economy.

I still haven't seen the movie btw. I'm waiting for it to get uploaded on one of the big torrent sites. Moore shouldn't mind me downloading it for free. He's against capitalise so surely it would be hypocritical of him to wish to capitalise on this movie. So I'm saying what I'm about to say without having seen the film, which is a little unfair I know. But I've seen a lot of interviews he's done to promote the film so I basically know what he's on about and what he's trying to tell everyone with this movie.

One of the basic messages he tries to convey in this film is that capitalism is "evil". He's explained this in interviews by saying capitalism is legalised greed. But greed is part of human nature. Moore has even acknowledged that in some of the interviews I've seen. So if you acknowledge greed is a basic human function, then you must acknowledge that it exists outside of the exchange of goods and services and the accumulation of personal wealth. It exists in all functions of life including, and some may say especially government. So even in a democratically run system (which is essentially the same as saying a government run system) greed will still exist and it will corrupt the system. Do politicians not act on self-interest and greed? Self-interest is the driving force in our society. That's the fundamental flaw in these ideologies that promote an economy and a society totally run by a democratically-elected body of representatives. They naively think political self-interest is somehow nobler than economic self interest. Tell me Moore, who are these angels that are going to run our economy and not act on self-interest and greed? As you yourself acknowledge, Mr Moore, these are basic human functions. There's no one that doesn't possess these traits. So there's no one who can effectively run our economy. That's why no one should run our economy. You know? Like a free market system.

From what I've read and heard, Moore finishes the movie by saying we need to replace capitalism with another system. You think he's going to say socialism, but the system he proposes we use is... "democracy". Now that sounds great. Everyone loves democracy. We've been told it's the best political system and we've fought to protect it and spread it around the world. I agree, for electing our representatives in government, democracy is definitely the best system. But for running our economy... I don't think so. I've already explained why no one should run our economy and we should let the spontaneous order of things "run" the economy itself. But I haven't explained how democracy is an undesirable system for doing anything apart from electing governments. Democracy is best explained as two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner. It's 51% deciding what the other 49% should do. I don't want to be told what to do. I want to make my own decisions and live my own life. Don't we all? Democracy is the antithesis of individual freedom.

Democracy is also a very corruptible system. If you want to control democratic decisions, you only need to manipulate 51% of the people. That's not hard for the rich and powerful to do. Money is power in a capitalist system. So if you've got the money you can buy the newspapers, buy the cable networks, control the information that is given to the masses and you control everything. And if that's not enough to control the outcome of an election or something, just pay off whoever does end up winning the election. That may sound like I'm criticising the capitalist system that allows people to become rich enough to do that. I'm not. I'm criticising the democratic system that allows rich people to have any power over the rest of us. If government didn't have as much control, than cooperate influences in government would mean nothing. It wouldn't matter if some rich CEO paid off a politician if that politician didn't have the power to control the economy through regulation and taxation can funnel all the money from the middle class to the rich people who pay for his campaigns. Decrease the size of government and you decrease the influence of the rich on all of us.

That's all I have to say. I would really like to hear what some of you think about all this. Do you agree with me? Or do you agree with Moore? I'd really like to hear your thoughts.