Capitalism: A Love Story

The comical introduction warns us the film we’re about to see “isn’t for the faint of heart.” The audience, witnessing a very animated repudiation of capitalism—a hot button indeed—chortles loudly. Images of thieves stealing money from cash registers pepper the opening credits. Next, snips of classic (read: laughably melodramatic) Roman period films flash by, intercut with clips relating to the economic collapse of 2008, as the voice-over discusses the seeds of Rome’s decay. Never mind that many factors contributed to Rome’s fall that entire volumes have been written about it.

Like his golfing shot of Mr. Bush in Fahrenheit 9/11, a montage of President George W. Bush dancing in various situations at the White House—devoid of context—paints Mr. Bush as a modern Nero, fiddling while Rome burns. I can think of myriad relevant examples of his ineptitude, but the superfluous montage undercuts Mr. Moore’s purpose.

Two images are juxtaposed for consideration: A cat flushing a toilet, and a family squatting in their home facing foreclosure. Both appear to be amateur video. Perhaps Mr. Moore wants to illustrate the absurdity of our society with the former, failing to recognize the lack of journalistic integrity in the latter. One-sided testimony about a family’s eviction lacking editorial guidance to weigh both sides is insufficient evidence. Why did the family default? What were the terms of their loan? Were the terms elucidated by the lender? There’s a similar piece later, filmed by Mr. Moore’s crew, in which another family laments losing their inherited farm of several decades. The husband was injured and was living on disability payments. Mr. Moore doesn’t examine the time gap between the injury and the default. How long did the family cling to the house they could no longer afford before foreclosure became imminent? Possibly they tried selling the house and failed due to market conditions, but this perspective is conspicuously absent. Also interesting: Mr. Moore completely ignores the fact that our capitalist society has disability insurance benefits through Social Security. Did he think this was self-evident, or does it poke holes in his central thesis that capitalism is so evil the baby and the bath water need to be thrown out, posthaste?

He introduces us to a young real estate speculator, Peter Zalewski, who swoops in to pick up foreclosed condos. Mr. Moore allows the unapologetic fellow to speak for himself, comparing the work to predation by vultures. Don’t we consumers, eager to get a good deal on a house, create the market that keeps these vultures fed? Not a word from Mr. Moore on that. He doesn’t want us to think about how interwoven we are into the fabric of this financial morass. It’s “us” versus “THEM.” By what mechanism are we separated?

There Mr. Moore fails to fortify his thesis. He doesn’t examine the nature and origins of greed: How and why one of “us” becomes one of “them.” To wit, no genetic mechanism exists to immunize any human to selfishness. Surely, some individuals have a head start by way of dynastic wealth, and/or ambition and acquisitiveness in their nature. When exploring the corruption of a Pennsylvania judge who allegedly took $2.6 million in kickbacks from the privatization of a juvenile detention facility, Mr. Moore infers—inexplicably—the system of capitalism actively contributed to this corruption in ways that a government-run operation couldn’t possibly. This man obviously wasn’t a judge all his life. He started somewhere in the justice system, because if he were born a aristocratic billionaire he wouldn’t ever need to work. You and I started somewhere as well, and we do tend to think about those immediately around us first. Where does family accountability end and selfishness begin? Are zealous bureaucrats in government genetically more or less predisposed to greed and corruption than the rest of us? Do socialist governments inherently lack vehicles for avarice? Like a Creationist selectively ignoring evidence hampering his agenda, Mr. Moore selectively ignores facts controverting his hypotheses and fails horribly at exploring these finer gradations of human nature.

In perhaps the most bizarre stretch of reasoning, Mr. Moore appeals ironically to armchair patriotism by carting out U.S. Airways pilot Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger, who swiftly saved 155 lives aboard Flight 1549. The digression evolves into questioning why airline pilots are paid so little. All salaries cited were those of regional commuter pilots in entry-level positions. Interestingly, not one of the major airline pilots’ salaries, Mr. Sullenberger’s included, is disclosed. It’s not that $19,000 seems perfectly fair for a regional commuter pilot. It’s that the obverse is never examined. Experienced pilots of Northwest and other major carriers make over $150,000 per year. This places them precariously near the top one percent of income earners for whom Mr. Moore’s vitriol is reserved. What any of this has to do with the collapse of a financially-based economy is beyond me. Mr. Moore argues that airline safety is poor because pilots are paid little, and that’s a product of capitalism. Airline pilots don’t perform maintenance, however, the lack of which is the primary contributor to airline safety problems. What about state-run airlines? What are their safety records? Did their governments spare no expense at maintenance and safety? Whether they did or didn’t, Mr. Moore makes no attempt to probe it. One would think if the argument worked in his favor, he’d present it.

In his anemic discussion of the derivatives market, credit default swaps and stock options are glossed over. Mr. Moore never meaningfully dissects the key culprits of our economic woes, mortgage-backed securities and collateralized debt obligations. Viewers are left as uninformed about the problem as if they’d spent the time watching “American Idol.” Goldman Sachs is lambasted for taking TARP funds, never mind the fact that they paid back all $68 billion they had borrowed within one month. None of their contemporaries did so.

I wonder, why is it that Warren Buffett is never interviewed? Mr. Buffett was a star pupil of Columbia professor Benjamin Graham, the father of fundamental financial analysis and value investing—the antithesis to market speculation voodoo. As CEO of Berkshire-Hathaway International he accepts a salary lower than a Northwest Airlines pilot. He lives in the same relatively modest, five-bedroom house he purchased on the unpretentious Farnham Street in Omaha, NE, in 1958 for $31,000. There isn’t a single ostentatious car in his garage. He and his business partner Charlie Munger encourage transparency and accountability manifested in the Berkshire Hathaway Owners Manual given to all shareholders, whom he regards as part-owners not distant stockholders. Always a coach-class traveler, when he caved in and acquired a used corporate jet because his notoriety became disruptive to commercial flights, he nicknamed it “The Indefensible.” Mr. Buffett, having openly admonished a lack of proper corporate governance and the Bush administration’s disastrous tax cuts in his 2003 Annual Letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, raised funds for Barack Obama. The finance and investment titan once described derivatives as “Financial Weapons of Mass Destruction.” He could have been Mr. Moore’s double-barreled shotgun, and instead we’re given Wallace Shawn (most recognized as Vizzini in The Princess Bride). Last I checked, Mr. Shawn’s professional credentials as an actor have absolutely no bearing on investment banking, the deregulation of which is central to Mr. Moore’s entire argument. But alas, maybe it didn’t work out because Mr. Buffett believes both in capitalism as well as investment in society. Most damaging to Mr. Moore’s credibility could be that Mr. Buffett, the second richest man in the world, is giving 85% of his wealth to charity and supports the estate tax, regarding dynastic wealth an unfair advantage akin to preselecting the winners of some future Olympics from the offspring of current gold medalists.

Adding insult to injury in this woeful documentary, Mr. Moore demonizes Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner while beatifying President Obama. Mr. Geithner, we’re told, was rewarded for past failure with this current post. The President doesn’t deserve all of the criticism he’s receiving, but it’s useful to note that Timothy Geithner was hand-picked by President Obama. Surely Michael Moore might have liked to mention that, no?

I want to state for the record that I wholeheartedly support universal healthcare and government-subsidized post-secondary education. I think these items are as essential to the well-being of a society as a working police force, running water and city sanitation. I also am convinced that banks and mortgage brokers who engaged in malfeasance and deception, and front-loaded transaction fees encouraging such impropriety, contributed to the financial meltdown. However, Michael Moore’s jocular style and selective research pains me. There are better arguments to be made about the need to return to a manufacturing-based economy, but Mr. Moore manages to make liberals seem kooks by association the same way Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter—jingoistic blowhards both—caricature conservatives.

When one interviewee, noting the evaporation of America’s middle class, says, “There’s no in-between any more,” he isn’t kidding. Mr. Moore’s documentary fluctuates from lucid, cogent arguments, to cartoonish abstractions and conjectures—all the while, his lilting voice massaging our guilt reflex. Appeals to emotion, however attractive they may be to a general movie audience, aren’t sound arguments in debate—even poorer journalism.

Capitalism: A Love Story • Dolby® Digital surround sound in select theatres • Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 • Running Time: 120 minutes • MPAA Rating: R for some language. • Distributed by Overture Films