A crowd of angry people stream out of the movie theater muttering to one another and eyeing foreign, luxury cars in the parking lot like they might just flip one over. These people are poor and they’re pissed. In his latest installment of eye-opening documentaries Michael Moore challenges the tenets of Capitalism, and the culture of greed it has instilled in the American corporate machine.
Moore’s new film “Capitalism: A love Story”, which opened on Oct. 2, takes a historical look at the American dream and its dream-weavers: corporate America. Moore contends that the concept of a free market has been manipulated and corrupted by large corporations in order to maximize their profits, even as the employees, consumers and even the country that made the corporations profitable are treated as expendable commodities.
Centered on the recent collapse of the banking system, “Capitalism” retraces the steps of deregulation in the financial industry that set the stage for the failure of dozens of financial institutions. Exotic mortgages designed to make the banks trillions, instead spawned a devastating wave of foreclosures through the country’s home-owning community. The crash of stocks on Wall Street sent unemployment to its highest level since the Great Depression, and decreased the value of pensions and 401-k’s to almost nothing.
The current trend toward homelessness and joblessness, Moore explains, is the result of a 50 year brainwashing campaign by corporate America that has sought to equate un-tethered capitalism with freedom and democracy in the mind of Americans. Moore argues that nothing could be further from the truth, and that capitalism is undemocratic and therefore un-American.
Particularly chilling is a memo that surfaced during his research for the film that was issued by the goliath lender Citibank to its wealthiest investors. The memo congratulates its recipients for being among the wealthiest 1% of the country which now control more than the combined wealth of the bottom 95%. The Citibank memo goes on to discuss ways for those elite customers to continue to “Ride the gravy train”, and expresses concern that one day the public will wake up to the disparity between the poor and the wealthy in this country.
Such brazen greed, says Moore, is the reason that executives at Fortune 500 companies are receiving multi-million dollar bonuses as they resign from running companies into the ground. And these same companies are receiving billions of dollars in taxpayer bailout money from those being evicted.
The film details the eviction process of several long time homeowners who lost their homes due to lending programs that seem specifically engineered to be impossible for a layman=2 0to understand. With footage that is infuriating at times, Moore weaves together the mind-numbing audacity of the wealthy corporate executives, with the desperate plight of those whose shoulders bear the burden of that wealth.
The film also accents the somewhat sinister relationship between corporate America and the U.S. government. As politicians rely on corporations to sponsor their campaigns, and the corporations rely on the government to ease regulations so that they can legally rape and pillage the general population. The lines of what is legal and what is ethical have been blurred by this relationship so badly that our ship has run aground and our country is suffering.
The real question Moore raises is whether or not the American public will become angry enough to actually do something about it or continue to buy into the false ideals created for us by a system that views us as cattle. Chock full of revealing facts, frightening statistics and moving footage, Moore’s latest installment is an absolute must-see. If you’re still not convinced, then at least invest in a pitch-forks and torches company. The angry villagers are awake.