America, Inc.

CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY (2009)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

There are two popular directors who continue to dismantle and re-energize the national dialogue in American politics, Oliver Stone and Michael Moore. Stone is more serious, perhaps more heavy-handed but never less than explosive, both in fictional films and documentaries. Michael Moore is a rabble-rouser in the guise of an average joe who wears a baseball cap and innocently asks to enter establishments where he is unwanted. As in the case of his latest film, he loves America but he hates what has become of it, what it has transformed into - namely, as my wife put it, America, Inc. "Capitalism: A Love Story" is a powerhouse of a documentary, a tale of how the corporations took over and treated everyone who wasn't rich into a statistic. Coming from Moore and his band of researchers, the results of how this developed can be devastating to watch.

"Capitalism" deals with corporate mentality that began with Ronald Reagan's presidency and the former Merrill Lynch CEO Don Regan, the President's Secretary of the Treasury (he tells Reagan on camera to speed up his speech). Regan helped to stimulate economic growth with "Reaganomics," as well as relieving tax burden on corporations and granting them more power. Thus, greed and financial deregulation, the essence of the 1980's Reaganomics plan, took over and spilled into everything from GM's bankruptcy and various closings of their manufacturing plants to thousands of people getting laid off (there is an abundance of Flint, Michigan footage here, as well as recaps of Moore's doc debut, "Roger and Me"), to the eventual bubble bursting with the 2009 economic near-collapse and near-repeat of the Great Depression. Real-estate went into a downward spiral leading to record numbers of foreclosures, loss of jobs, and bailout money given to the big honchos that we, the taxpayers, were expected to help cover.

Most of the financial disaster is complemented by scenes of several police units ready to bust through someone's house. In the opening scene of "Capitalism," a family member records on their camera the arrival of several police cars arriving at their property. Are the people inside the house inside traders, drug dealers, killers on the lam? No, they just couldn't afford their mortgage and the police are only there to enforce their eviction. Later, we see a real estate vulture looking to buy people out of their homes and condos.

In addition to evictions and real estate vultures (the one shown in this film loves his job a little too much), there are also some startling facts regarding the current work force under Wall Street dominance and capitalism at its finest. There is a "dead peasants insurance," which means the employer can take out a life insurance policy on an employee without the employee's or the spouse's knowledge, meaning you are worth more dead than alive (these payouts are sometimes in the millions category). Walmart had practiced this immoral act and then quit.

Most agonizing and unclear are the "derivatives." I can't fully explain them but I would say it is legalized gambling and the Wall Street investors are always in a win-win situation when it comes to investments - even if the investments fail, the investor wins (as in the still-current housing crisis). It isn't so much that the economic near-collapse happened - it is simply a wonder and a bit of a relief it didn't happen sooner.

Michael Moore is clearly all over the map here, but his radical conclusion is that capitalism should be changed or replaced, modified in some way so that we can have the old American dream where one job would take care of a family and a home (not to mention more paid vacations, as demonstrated by Moore's own family upbringing in Flint). But a corporate mentality has taken over and is making all the decisions for the people, not Congress and certainly not the President. Yeah, we got President Obama, our shining prince whose mantra was "Change we can believe in." Though Moore omits President Obama as any sort of culprit in our current state of affairs, the implication is that Goldman Sachs and various other banks and corporations gave donations to his election campaign - they fully expect Obama to play the game that Dubya and others before him played. In other words, keep America at bay with financial failures and catastrophes so that the fat cats can get fatter and the poor get poorer. Yet, as Moore also makes it clear, the rich are 1% of this country, and the rest of us make up the resulting 99%. We are on equal footing with the rich when it comes to political votes. We can make a change, as evidenced by one scene where protesting workers decide to stay inside a plant and get a small pie of the bailout mostly taken away by corporations.

"Capitalism: A Love Story" is one hell of a firecracker of a film that leaves us with more questions than answers. It is rigid agitprop that is nicely balanced by humorous episodes, such as Moore's trademark tomfoolery like placing police tape around the Goldman and Sachs building. But there is one moment, a rarely seen moment, dignified and quite potent, that features lost footage of F.D.R. recommending we get a Second Bill of Rights where every American would get free health care, a job, social security, an education and, most importantly, freedom from unfair competition and monopolies. F.D.R. died before implementing this new Bill of Rights. Had it passed, we might not be in the precarious situation we are in now.