Capitalist Excess? A Review of Michael Moore’s “Capitalism”
Love him or hate him, or his films, there’s no question about where Michael Moore stands ideologically: Left-wing, “progressive,” populist, socialist. In some ways Moore’s newest film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” muddies the water. But in the end, all it really shows is that Michael Moore doesn’t actually know what capitalism is.
Apparently, Moore thinks that capitalism is a system where the government bails out and controls the financial sector, or one whereby a few rich people dominate the entire structure and keep everyone else poor. Both are leftist caricatures that have nothing in common with capitalism properly construed, as best described by its first and best exponent, Adam Smith.
So Moore’s film needs a new title. Perhaps something like, “Corporatism: What the Left Thinks Capitalism Is.”
Watching Michael Moore rail against corporate bailouts in the early scenes of his latest movie, a free marketeer might wonder if perhaps the film maker has inadvertently blundered into the truth. Among other things, he rips apart the notion that government and big business partnering up is good for the little guy. About half-way through the movie, I actually caught myself thinking: Do Michael Moore and disciples of Adam Smith actually agree?
Eventually the film predictably drifts leftward, criticizing “excesses” such as high foreclosure rates, individuals hurt by (downward) stock-market swings, problems with a privatized jail and, of course, the fact that rich people are, well, rich (this from a guy worth millions himself). Moore also makes a faux-religious argument, asking some priests, “What would Jesus do?”
Many on the left similarly cite such “excesses of capitalism” as their reasons for opposing a free-market system. The reality, of course, is that most of these excesses have nothing to do with capitalism. Indeed, things like high foreclosure rates are the result of government policies that subsidized and virtually forced banks to give mortgage loans to people who couldn’t afford the home. The financial and stock-market crashes of one year ago were byproducts of the inevitable collapse of that house of cards.
But alas, excesses and villains are what sell movie tickets. Perhaps Moore will expand on the theme with films on the excesses of non-capitalist systems? How about these?: The Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (two million murdered), the Soviet Union (65 million dead), Communist China (70 million dead), and so on. Now, those are some excesses, and gripping ones at that.
Michael Moore incoherently argues that we need to replace “capitalism” with a true American system: “Democracy.”
Ironically, a true capitalist system is the best and most pure system of the democratic ideal: individual consumers and producers engaging in purely voluntary and mutually beneficial exchanges. This could not be more different from government and politics, the hallmarks of which are coercion and dishonesty.
Here’s how economist Walter Williams defines capitalism and the proper role of government in such a system:
“Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private ownership and control over the means of production. The distribution of goods and services and their prices are mainly determined by competition in a free market. Under such a system the primary job of government is to protect private property, enforce contracts, and ensure rule of law.”
Capitalism is a system that has pulled millions upon millions of people out of poverty, but Michael Moore is profoundly ignorant of that. When pressed in an interview, he said he “doesn’t want to get caught up in titles.” He apparently doesn’t want to get caught up in truth either. Yet, condemning a system without understanding its basic principles sells movie tickets—i.e., it makes money—and earns the praise of others who share Moore’s ignorance.
Before this film was released, Moore wrote, “The time has arrived for, as Time magazine called it, my ‘magnum opus.’ I only had a year of Latin when I was in high school, so I’m not quite sure what that means, but I think it’s good.”
Michael Moore may have had one year of Latin, but he either skipped or flunked Econ 101.
— Jarrett Skorup is a 2009 graduate of Grove City College and former student fellow at The Center for Vision & Values. He is a research intern at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, a research and educational institute headquartered in Midland, Mich. Mr. Skorup can be reached at Skorup@mackinac.org.
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November 5th, 2009 at 6:09 am
It is not clear to me at least whether it is possible to have capitalism which in the end does not transform into corporatism. In the same way that it might not be possible to have socialism that does not transform into totalitarianism.
So I can not quite accept the above article in its attempt to divide the good capitalism from the bad capitalism by calling it corporatism. People sometimes use the term free enterprise. But within capitalism there need be nothing free just the dominance of the ‘interests’ of capital above all others.
For me the article was spoilt by the repartition of statistics about how many people where killed by regimes the author does not like. How such numbers could ever be know and how they arrived at is never explained. Also we never get the numbers say killed in Vietnam and say Iraq as a counterbalance in the argument. To me it just shows bias so I think I have to dismiss the article as being unreliable.
November 8th, 2009 at 2:46 am
This is the reason you call the article “unreliable”? Sounds to me like you are ignoring the valid points. How does the “repartition of statistics” invalidate his economic points?
Corporate excess can obviously be a bad thing – he says this straight up. But freedom and private ownership have turned the world around. Most of human history has been a dark depressing series of tyrants forcing their will onto the masses. Then America comes along and slowly changes things for the entire planet.
But then, out of nowhere comes “Hope and Change”, and our freedoms disappear one at a time. You guys are so blinded you will not see. Just because it looks like a benevolent dictatorship, you’re okay with it. I wish there was some way to make this neo-Wiemar Republic only happen to the hopeychangey crowd, but there’s not. So I have to fight it to save my children from living in a very different reality than I was blessed with.
Please wake up – we don’t have much time left.
November 8th, 2009 at 4:45 am
Well Squiggy it is not that the economic argument is wrong or not, it is just that I don’t trust this source.
Let me explain. Just about everything I know about the world comes from someone else telling me something. I, and indeed probably most of us, have little first hand knowledge of anything. I therefore adopt a very high standard before I accept what I am told. So suppose I read something that was 90% convincing but then had 10% in it I either knew was wrong or I thought showed the author bias then I would not cherry pick from what I had read but dismiss it all as the source would then in my judgement be unreliable.
This might seem an eccentric approach but it is how I choose to access things. Don’t misunderstand this as a lack of militancy on my part. Rather it is an independence of mind and a resistance to letting any body else insert a thought into my head without my being absolutely sure that I want it there.
All this hardly matters though. I am well aware of my own insignificance so what is in my mind has no importance to anyone else other than me.
That said, most of history has been very troubles. If I was writing this 70 years ago we would be at the start of a war which would see the violent deaths of many people. May be again we are at such a point and the future will be a’ dark age’. If I have to bet on it I would say it is more likely than not.
By the way I live in Europe so everything I know about the USA comes from what people tell me.
November 9th, 2009 at 4:43 am
Power, where ever it is found, in the free market, the governement, corporations, unions, or the individual, needs to be regulated and controlled. That does not mean shackled and burdened with unnecessary rules and regulations, but watched with a careful eye, while maintaining the ability to step in and stop destructive or abusive behaviors. Power corrupts, no matter how benevolent the system that power originated in was. Its not about one being good, or the other being bad, but about finding a balance, and constantly adjusting that balance in order to achieve maximum results. Too little gas, and the engine goes slow, too much and it floods.
November 9th, 2009 at 10:27 am
Jabbrewoki, you are absolutely correct.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Paul said:
This might seem an eccentric approach but it is how I choose to access things
That sounds a lot like Adam Savage’s “I reject your reality and substitute my own”. Except his is meant ironically.
Choosing which truth to believe means you have no idea what the word “truth” means.
November 10th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Sqiggley I don’t think you understood a word I wrote. So adding more is pointless.
November 11th, 2009 at 1:57 am
Paul, people who use a hundred words (to say what could have been said in ten) are universally understood to be bloviating, at best, or lying, at worst. If I didn’t understand what you wrote I’m pretty sure the fault lies with someone other than me.