Capitalism: a love story

So, this review is coming a little late, but late is better than never i suppose.  You may disagree, but that's why i'm the blogmaster.

If you've seen a Michael Moore movie before, you probably know what to expect.  Given his fame, he does tend to "preach to the choir" as it were.  If you don't already largely agree with his views, there's very little chance you're going to see his movies.

It's going to be a challenge to separate out the review from the political persuasion.  I guarantee that each and every review out there that i've read reviewed Michael Moore, not the movie.  While liberal reviewers praised the message, conservative reviewers whined about how much they hate liberal messages (and liberals in general).  I'll try to avoid this idiotic attitude, but i'll air on the side of a liberal view-point, if only because if you're a conservative, you're not going to see this movie anyway, no matter how good or bad it really is.  Hell, i'm willing to bet that if it cured CANCER, the staunch conservative would still rather die than watch Michael Moore.

Capitalism: a love story examines the mixture of capitalism (the economic system) with democracy (the political system).  While it's true that these are very different systems, most people in the western world have largely come to accept the two as one and the same, or at the very least, 100% compatible.  In his movie, Moore attempts to examine how closely related they truly are and see if they truly are as compatible as we in the west take them to be.

Now, if you're a typical conservative movie reviewer, this is as far as you're going to get into the movie: the by-line.  After this, you apparently start claiming Moore to be advocating some kind of Stalinist communism.  Of course, Moore never says this and it seems to even be the case that he's in favour of capitalism, albeit a more mixed economy version than is currently practiced in most westernized societies.  I'm not going to go into the details here, 'cause the movie does that just fine - it's the anti-Moore reviewers who seemed to have missed the movie in lieu of their own tired points.

Most of the movie is spent focusing on the human side of the equation.  Moore showcases cases of pure corruption that were allowed and indeed encouraged by an economic system that, as profit-driven economic systems often do, only care about the profit margins.

Moore does a particularly good job of exposing the corrupt idea of "dead peasant" insurance, in which corporations secretly take out life insurance policies against their employees in order to turn a profit in the event of "unforeseen" deathes.  Some of these come in the form of even hoping for employee suicides.  Given the increased prevalance of "fast paced, high preassure" work environments (go on, check any job ad), one is left to wonder if some of these suicides are more than tragic accidents.  Of course, speaking as one who's seen fellow employees having mental breakdowns because of increasingly unreasonable damands placed upon them, i think it's more than mere speculation to say "yes".

Since Moore's not a numbers man, like myself, he spends much more focus on tugging at emotional heartstrings of his audience.  Unless you're minds been rinsed and lathered in ideologies or you have a heart of stone, there's a good chance much of this will affect you.  Regardless of your political persuasions or what you think of Moore, it's not easy to watch families being thrown out into the street, often illegally, because they can no longer afford the mortgages or second mortgages they were talked into getting by bankers looking to make short-term profits.

A (short) aside: critics often cite the borrower as being in the wrong for accepting a mortgage that they cannot possibly pay, but this fails the capitalistic litmus test.  If the banks are lending money it is they, not the borrower, who is responsible for this judgement and they, not the borrower, who takes the risk in lending the money.  A truly capitalistic society would allow the banks to fail and the borrower to screw the lender - the market's punishment for poor decisions.  Yet who got the bail-out and who lost their house?

Now there's a lot more to Moore's movie than just the above, but i really don't know how to talk about it all without just rehashing his cases in my words.  There is classic "Michael Moore" moments of sensationalism, but there's also some good points hidden for the more cautious and discerning viewer.  That being said, not all his arguments hold any water.  The religious talk, particularly, does nothing for me, but i at least understand where he's coming from with it.  The purpose is to appeal to the religiously inclined in the theatre which, according to wikipedia, is a full 76% of Americans as of 2008.

So, is Moore's film any good?  Well, it's entertaining, but only if you agree with him.  He makes the case against "capitalism = democracy" quite well, but he's by no means the first person to do so.  Not only have others done this, but they've done it better.  The Trap by Adam Curtis (reviewed here on this site earlier) is much more poigniant and telling, but has a much narrower argument to make.

Ultimately, you'll only see this movie if you agree with Moore anyway so i can only rate it in terms of other Moore movies for you:

Better than Farenheit 911 and Roger and Me, not quite Sicko or Bowling for Columbine material.  I give this 2 "invisible hand of the market" thumbs up (out of 3).  Let's just call that a B- (yes, i'm aware it's not actually a B).