Capitalism: A Love Story

Although filmmaker Michael Moore is not perfect by any means, I’ve always appreciated the influential space in the media he has managed to carve out for himself because, as Bambu says: “this very non-threatening caucasian is asking his people to try and check their shit at the door.”

His latest work, Capitalism: A Love Story, is no different and, as a scathing critique of the American capitalist system, could quite possibly be his most relevant and important film yet.

Moore walks us through his upbringing in middle America during the 1950s and ’60s, the supposed “Golden Age” of American prosperity due to wealth being more evenly distributed amongst the population (labor unions were strong and the super-rich top 1% of this time were taxed almost 90%, Moore says). As the film continues on through history, we see Reagan’s gutting of the public safety net, the massive rolling back of our tax structure to benefit the rich, and corporate America’s near total takeover of the economy and political system, all culminating in the 2008 global financial collapse and the publicly subsidized bailout of the corporate banking and financial industry by the George W. Bush Administration just as they are about to leave the White House. Pretty bleak stuff, but Moore manages to still infuse his trademark humor and everyman-insights to highlight the absurdity of the situation we now find ourselves in.

Although today’s Great Recession would seem to be putting the problems of the capitalist system on full display, people definitely do not seem to be ditching it for other ideologies. So, what kind of alternatives should we be pushing for? Moore doesn’t spell out exactly the kind of reforms or system he thinks should replace our current one, but he does highlight some interesting acts of resistance that have or are happening currently, such as the workers of Chicago’s Republic Windows and Doors company taking over their factory after it is shut down by management, or the highly profitable, productive and democratically structured Alvarado Street Bakery cooperative in Petaluma, CA.

While the film does go off into a lot of directions at times, mostly due to the huge amount of information being packed into its 2+hours, if at the very least people walk away with the idea that maybe it’s not so bad to strongly regulate capitalism and tax the super rich more, I think it will have done its job. Recommended.