Is Michael Moore America's Leni Riefenstahl?
Michael Moore, the professional freedom-hating socialism-hugging documentary filmmaker strolled onto the Jay Leno show to push his latest misnomered movie, "Capitalism: A Love Story."
Not only did he show up but he showed off his utter ignorance of economics in general and capitalism in particular.
And he, like many people on the political right and virtually everyone on the left, labeled capitalism as evil even as he clearly demonstrated that the evil belongs to government.
Then, because of ignorance or the willful refusal to discern the difference between capitalism and corporatism, he committed one of the most mindlessly simple-minded, obviously oblivious, childlike economic fallacies of all time.
But let's start with the title, "Capitalism: A Love Story." Moore's explanation is, "The love refers to how the wealthy love their money except this has a new twist. They not only love their money now, they love our money."
(Jay Leno responded, "Right.")
But the simple act of loving money, anybody's money, never hurt anyone. The simple act of loving anything never hurt anyone. Or ever helped anyone either. Some people, frequently liberals, love to say they love the poor and the downtrodden and the disadvantaged but don't personally do anything about it because it's the act of loving that gives them the reward of superiority they're looking for.
So the title is pretty much meaningless.
Then, going for another catchy catchphrase, Moore says, "capitalism is actually legalized greed."
Huh? Let's think about this. How is "legalized greed" an indictment of capitalism? Capitalism can't "legalize" anything. Capitalism doesn't have legions of politicians passing laws requiring you to shop in their stores. They don't have cops and sheriffs and US Marshals and SWAT teams to arrest you for failing to buy their electric nose hair trimmers and their moccasin insoles with their Magically Massaging Molecules or their Triple-Threat McWendyKing Burger Bombs with Secret Sauce.
"Legalizing" is an act of government. If he thinks "capitalism is evil" (as he apparently says in the film) because they buy politicians, why aren't politicians evil for selling their power to capitalists?
Why didn't Moore title his movie "Government: A Love Story" on the premise that government is evil because government loves power?
Michael Moore, anti-capitalist documentarian and self-
acknowledged expert on capitalism at the Venice Film Festival
where equally ivory-towered economic know-nothings awarded
him two prizes for his film on fake capitalism, "Capitalism: A Love
Story." (AP Photo/Domenico Stinellis)
But this isn't meant to be an exhaustive review of Michael Moore's little hatchet job flick. It's only meant to spotlight his most egregiously idiotic economic nonsense in his Jay Leno Show interview.
Here's the relevant transcript of Moore with Leno lapping up the silliness. (Transcripts and videos are all over the net. This one came from The Nation sans accompanying commentary.)
MOORE: That's insane. We live in a democracy. We're supposed to have like fairness and equality. And, you know, when you have a pie on the table, you know, something you and I know something about.
LENO: Right. We've both had pie on the table.
MOORE: But when you have a pie on the table, there's ten slices, and one guy at the table says, 'Nine of those slices are mine...
LENO: Right.
MOORE: And the other nine of you, you can fight over the last slice,' I mean, that's essentially the kind of economy we have now.
This is known as the fallacy of the "zero-sum game" view of wealth.
Even though the "zero-sum" concept that society has only one pie and everyone must fight over that pie has been refuted over and over and over by economist after economist, this absurdity just never seems to die.
And here we have Michael Moore huffing and puffing and pumping new life into it.
Since the "economic pie" is treated as though it was always there and it was always the same size, the only question in the minds of the Michael Moores of the world is how to equitably distribute the slices.
But wait. Where did that pie come from in the first place? Well, duh, maybe someone baked it. And if one pie can be baked, why can't hundreds or thousands or millions of pies be baked? Big pies, little pies, pizza pies, cream pies for throwing in the faces of economic clowns?
Neither pies nor wealth are static sums; they must be created.
It's a very telling fallacy: the collectivist's concept of the national economy is represented by a single pie while capitalists envision a vibrant economy of unlimited pies.
.jpg)
Nazi propaganda filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl
(Wikipedia)
If government gets out of the way those awkwardly overlooked capitalist bakers will bake as many tasty pies for the lowest possible prices that the competitive free market will bear until everyone who wants a slice gets a slice. Governments don't create pies. Governments don't actually create anything. All they have is the power to stifle creation.
Get government's Simple Simon out of the path of the Pie Man and Michael Moore's puzzling problem disappears.
Capitalists are creators. Governments are takers. It really is that simple.
Beyond that, the one thing Moore and virtually everyone else save a few laissez-faire conservatives and economic-savvy libertarians just don't comprehend is that capitalism does not exist in America, and has not existed for many decades, if in fact it ever did.
What we have is the incestuous copulation of corporate money and government power that long ago produced what was once called a "mixed economy" and has now become the mutant known as Statist Corporatism.
Big Government power joined at the hip with Big Corporate cash has corrupted both government and capitalism.
And yet Moore, unable or uninclined to see the mutually destructive connection of that grotesque pairing that destroys economies everywhere it's allowed to happen, continues to mindlessly embrace big government as a savior while condemning capitalism as the Great Satan.
If there's any doubt about Moore's political position, take note of this quote from a recent AP article:
According to Moore, "the revolt you think I am calling for has actually begun. It began Nov. 4," when President Barack Obama was elected.
(Wait. Isn't Obama rich? Doesn't that make him one of "the wealthy" that "not only love their money now, they love our money"?)
In any case, libertarians know he has it exactly backwards. The so-called Obama revolt is not a revolt, it's merely one more incarnation of the same old anti-freedom totalitarian groupism that has plagued mankind since the beginning of misty history. The real revolt is libertarianism.
Real capitalism frees while corporatist statism enslaves. Yet Moore is a self-proclaimed Obama statist. Doesn't he know there will be nothing to prevent some statist bureaucrat in the future from deciding that Michael Moore should not be allowed to make movies?
Or maybe he has nothing to worry about. Maybe "Capitalism: A Love Story" makes Moore the American Leni Riefenstahl (Adolf Hitler's favorite propaganda filmmaker).
Poor Mike. He shoulda taken a crash course in Econ 101 before rolling his first foot of film.
(Read the Reed interview at The US Report)
Comments
Moore depends on socialism. He wouldn't survive long in a free society. He might eventually learn to be a good filmmaker if he would use his miniscule talents against the state instead of to prop it up. Instead he is desperately trying to make the wrong side, and soon to be losing side, look legitimate. It is a hopeless task.
...essentially the left's version of Bill O'Reilly, just in filmmaker form rather than talk-show host form. Of course he's a bit of a propagandist-- though comparisons to Nazism, as always, seem extreme at best and childish at worst-- and of course he's going to smear some of the facts to plead his case, but it's important that both sides-- the left and the right-- start admitting that they're both capable of such behavior.
The left hates Moore because he makes them look bad, and generally does this in packed movie theaters (except for "Sicko", which didn't fair too well at the B.O.), while the right has Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and the cro-magnon-esque Sean Hannity to deliver their smear campaigns.
I guess what I'm saying is: it'd be nice to have someone report on the fact that both sides are capable of this sort of thing rather than finger-pointing at just the right, or just the left. Fair and balanced much?
What do Moore's counterparts at Fox have to do with his complete lack of any knowledge on economics? You also seem to be confusing us with those on the left or right. Your comment makes no sense.
it is so glaringly obvious to the even the least casual observer, that you have to wonder if moore is confusing corporatism with capitalism on purpose.
Michael Moore is a big fat ass hat! I know that's a personal attack and it has absolutely nothing to do with the story. But as long as I am still breathing, I will continue to tell the world that Michael Moore is a big fat ass hat! For no other reason than my own hatred of the man. I have no opinion of his films nor his politics and I could care less about either. His ego is rivaled only by Donald Trump, and that is hard to do.
I thought Jay's interview of Michael Moore was just another interview of Jay's Jaywalkers. Except this time, in addition to Moore, Jay himself was one of those "brilliant" Jaywalkers.
It is GOOD to see Libertarians speaking up! Both the Left and the Right are perfectly content with the current setup of corrupted state and corporations--after all, it profits insiders plenty well.
"Some people, frequently liberals, love to say they love the poor and the downtrodden and the disadvantaged but don't personally do anything about it because it's the act of loving that gives them the reward of superiority they're looking for"
Angelina Jolie gives 1/3 of every paycheck she earns to the poor. Celebrities give tons of money every year to the poor and are always the first to raise and give money during tough times. Are you kidding me?
While Moore may undermine the benefits of the free market system, his viewpoint on the short term profit motives of financial institutions are correct. He highlights the plutocratic symbiosis of wall street and the wealthy. He highlights the powerful relationship between financial institutions, (fueled with an abundance of capital from the top 1 % percent), and how they deregulate and utilize second degree products, or derivatives, to take a disproportionate advantage. Now people from main street don't understand that finance institutions work inside the rules of private enterprise, pursuing a system which creates nothing tangible, and that government, far from limiting true productivity, simply caters to the interests of these corporations by allowing them further exercises of business, enforcing competition. Government is needed, not to divide the pie more evenly, but to curb abuses amongst any sort of entity which becomes too powerful, to prevent the inability of free enterprise
"Government is needed...to curb abuses amongst any sort of entity which becomes too powerful." And there's your conundrum. Government itself is the entity which has become too powerful. So what do you do now? It obviously can't be controlled by naive ideas like voting and "getting politically involved." And since government has a monopoly on the use of coercion, and that monopoly has become virtually limitless, and bankers don't have such a monopoly on coercion, which entity do you really think is the greater evil and can do the greatest harm to society in general and freedom in particular?
you can't have freedom with government. You have to give some of it up, as we already do. corporatism is not government and corporate collusion, it's a type of interest group system. The US has a pluralist interest group system, but business firms do dominate. I wouldn't label all liberals as statists. Some, like mike, favor democracy, which is non-statist. Democracy--rule by the people. If you favor the principle of democracy, you want more citizen participation. What's wrong with that? I wish mike was more to the left and just straight out said he's a democratic socialist. If we will always have governments, let's at least have more control over them.
But the conondrum you are highlighting does not exist. First of all, the constitution has demonstrated sufficient, fail-safe protections which limit each part of the gov. power, preventing gross abuse. However, the founding fathers never considered that something like the corp. entity would become so effectual outside of its business dealings. The gov. has been steadily succeeding power to the corporate entities, the government is catering to their interests, using its power to satisfy what their lobbytists ask. The gov. is approaching a status of the corp. worlds political aspirations. Check out Kelo vs. City of New London to see what i mean. Usually the right of eminent domain was used for something like the public good, such as expanding a highway, general utility project etc. NOW, the gov. is essentially making people leave their land to create space for corporate expansion.
I didn't read the 2nd half of your comment Garry. Coercion, is an interesting word. While I agree that the voting institution has been completely undermined, I don't see much government coercion, at least not many which is destructive to society. For example, the gov. coerces you from committing acts which hurt society, or it coerces corporations to limit their amount of environmental pollution. While the gov. can apply levels of force the individual can't their are multiple safe guards to prevent these abuses, and I think it is fair to say that gov. coercion here is nothing compared to the extreme, all encompassing coercion of totalitarian governments. Give me some examples of gov. coercion which are unjustified by preventing harm to others, and really represent such gross abuses of power. I think that the government doesn't do this past the point of limiting your ability to choose unhealthy lifestyles, such as taxing cigarettes.
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