Michael Moore: millionaire Marxis
Michael Moore the millionaire Marxist is at it again. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time until he came out openly Marxist, and with his latest piece of pro-Marixst propaganda, Moore does not disappoint. In the film, “Capitalism, a Love Story,” Moore seeks to illustrate how capitalism has failed and thus socialism is the only viable system by which a sensible and advanced people may prosper. Unfortunately for Moore it is clear from viewing many of his previous films that he doesn’t know what capitalism is. It is also clear that while Moore may well indeed have a true empathy for those financially less fortunate than himself, he has no intention of spreading his wealth around. Why? Because, in his own words, he is just like us. A recent interview with Larry King revealed the following exchange:
Moore: Who's got the money? And whoever has the money has the power. And right now, in America, tonight, Larry, the richest 1 percent have more financial wealth than the bottom 95 percent combined.
King: You're in that 1 percent, though?
Moore: I don't think I'm in that 1 percent, but I make documentary films. But I mean, obviously, I do well because my films have done well. But, you know, even if I were, I think it's my responsibility -- my moral duty that if I've done well, that I have to make sure that everybody else.
King: Does well too or has a chance?
Moore: Well, has at least a chance but that -- and that the pie is divided fairly amongst the people and not just a few people get the majority of the loot and everybody else has to struggle for the crumbs.
King: Are you saying capitalism is a failure?
Moore: Yes. Capitalism. Yes. Well, I don't have to say it. Capitalism, in the last year, has proven that it's failed. All the basic tenets of what we've talked about the free market, about free enterprise and competition just completely fell apart. As soon as they lost, essentially, our money, they came running to the federal government for a bailout -- for welfare, for socialism. And I thought the basic principle of capitalism was that it's a sink-or-swim situation.
Moore has become a millionaire several times over and yet he has the audacity to assert that he is not in that one percent of Americans who control all the wealth. Surely George Soros could argue that there are others wealthier than he, and so he might also exclude himself from the one percent category.
Moore is correct in his assertion that the current system is “corrupt at its core,” but this is precisely the thing that reveals his lack of understanding of what capitalism is. The current system is indeed corrupt at its core, but if the system were capitalist then the “core” would not be what is corrupt, because the core of a free-market capitalist system is what Adam Smith termed the “invisible hand,” which is the individual consumer. We, the consumers, are not corrupt – we are the ones suffering from the corruption.
Moore claims that Wall Street is the core of the current system, but he is wrong. The core of the current system is the Federal government, more specifically the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. Wall Street is just outside the core and most certainly benefits from the corruption at the core, but the attitude on Wall Street that led to insane high risk investments in assets that everyone knew to be toxic and worthless could never have come about if the conditions created by the Fed (coupled with the policies and loan quotas imposed by several other agencies), because it is the Fed that manipulates the interest rates, increases the money supply, and creates credit out of thin air to “loan” to the largest banks knowing it will never be repaid. The real culprit of the current financial mess is a potpourri of government intervention through policies that date back decades, but the foundation upon which our current economy of lies has been built is the Federal Reserve.
What we have is not capitalism. If it were, there would be no Federal Reserve or any central bank manipulating interest rates outside of what the free market would decide they ought to be. If our system were indeed truly capitalist the government would not have been intervening in creating price controls for specific commodities, or pushing banks to meet quotas in making loans to people that couldn’t afford them, basing our entire financial system on paper money that has no intrinsic value whatsoever. If our system were truly capitalist, Lehman Brothers would never have failed because the situation would never have gotten to that point. Why? Because Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, government guaranteed “public-private enterprises” would not exist, because these things are simply venues where public money paid by us is guaranteed to back up loans made by private banks to people who are likely to default on them. Thus the people bear the risk and the private banksters take the profit. Such practices are incompatible with trrue capitalism.
Moore bemoans the massive financial institutions that begged Washington for a bailout. In a capitalist system, the bailouts would never have been considered. Capitalism hasn’t failed because real free market capitalism has not been tried since 1913. What has really been demonstrated to be a failure is Keynesian interventionism, which in general terms theorizes that it is possible for government to create a continuous or permanent prosperity through incremental interventions into the economy and through manipulation of currency and interest rates – by creating economic “bubbles.” Quite obviously the theory is flawed and always has been. The problem is that, like so many other things in this modern era that have been redefined, this theory is not called "Keynesianism," but capitalism.
It is not entirely surprising that Moore would not have a basic understanding of the substantial difference between capitalism and Keynesian interventionism, because most people have been educated to believe that the two are synonymous, but this is not the case. Capitalism requires that government encourage sound monetary policy to regulate, not manipulate; because once regulation becomes manipulation it is only a short step to management and planning. Management and planning are decidedly about control, and therefore interventionism always leads to socialism and tyranny.
For those who tend to believe Michael Moore’s theory that it is capitalism that has failed and is responsible for the current mess, I would challenge them to delve a bit more deeply into what Moore believes and advocates. Moore states that he believes “that the pie should be divided fairly amongst the people and not just a few people get the majority of the loot and everybody else has to struggle for the crumbs.” What Moore advocates is Marxism, and Marxism has never been proven to work without violence on the part of the government to enforce it, because it is against human nature. Before buying Moore’s version, people should learn the truth and think for themselves by reading Marx, Keynes, Smith, Friedman, Hayek and von Mises. Only through educating oneself can one see through the popular myths surrounding modern economic theories of the supposed benefits of interventionism and it’s supposed connection with the great economic thinkers of the past.
One might inquire just how Mr. Moore would intend to divide that pie more fairly. One might wonder what conditions must be met to receive “your share” of the pie. Would it just be automatic – a check in the mail, or would one have to be working or seeking work? Would that share be a supplement or a standard of living? Would it vary from person to person and household to household? What is “fair?”
Remember, what Moore is advocating is redistribution of wealth through confiscatory taxes the likes of which this country has never seen. This begs the question: would Mr. Moore and his Marxist ilk be willing to put their wallet where their ideology is? Do people really believe that elitists like Moore and Soros would willingly submit to a 90% tax rate on their income to be redistributed to people who don’t have as much as they do? Would they just settle for working hard to earn millions so that the government could take almost all of it and use it as bureaucrats see fit? Would they be willing to unite with the common workers, to live like us in a new egalitarian system where only equality of outcome is guaranteed – to give up forever theirelite status and the privileges that status entails? I think we all know the answer to that question.
AP Photo: Chris Young
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