In a recent town hall-style meeting at George Washington University, Michael Moore made an appearance to support his new movie, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” which was released on Friday, Oct. 2.
At the forum, Moore spoke extremely passionately about the topic of capitalism and discussed with the audience how they could make change happen.
“I’m tired of dancing around this problem,” Moore said.
Though Moore was at times extremely blunt and firm in his standing, it was obvious that he cared deeply about the American people and that he wanted to fix this injustice and save the millions of people who were victimized. Moore said he handles the issues he covers in a specific way.
“I do it with truth, and I will never say ‘hate,’” Moore said. “I have never said ‘hate.’ I will never say, ‘I hate George Bush,’ because I don’t hate him.”
Considering the fact that there are people such as radio personality Rush Limbaugh who have wished Moore death over nationally broadcast airwaves, that’s a pretty big contrast.
Moore’s film is an attempt to rally people and give them the tools to change the system. First, Moore said that we have to get involved and learn the truth about what is going on — to look to alternative forms of the news, like online British newspapers that are looking in at the United States from the outside. Then we need to get organized, turn off “Dancing With the Stars” and be loud. Moore was very apt at speaking to the college crowd and encouraged the audience to be the ones that make changes happen and fix the mistakes of the past. For instance, he said that he believed it was unfair for CEOs to make as much money as they do.
“Everyone needs to get a fair slice of the pie,” Moore said. “Not an equal slice, but a fair slice.”
Moore spoke strongly about how much he loves America and he wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. However, he said, Moore does believe that there are things that other countries do better — not only with health care, which he thinks the United States should model after the systems that have effectively been in place in other countries for the past 50 years. Moore reiterated that the main reason for home foreclosure is medical bills, emphasizing that health care reform reached wider than just people’s health, but also their entire lives.
“It is immoral to throw someone out on the curb because they get sick, and every other civilized country recognizes that,” Moore said.
Before he left the stage, Moore listed a few solutions for our current situation, but only immediate fixes or “band aids,” as he called them. First, he wants President Barack Obama to declare a temporary memorandum against foreclosure today, letting people stay in their homes while the government deals with the economy. Second, he wants a bill passed for government health care. Third, Moore wants free HBO for everyone. And fourth, Moore thinks we should have looser copyright and sharing laws.
“I can share a book, but not music,” Moore said. “People shouldn’t steal, but share.”
As Moore made his final remarks, he said it was good that people question him and his movies, because the public should always be questioning everything they hear and demanding the answers.
30 Comments
AU Free Market Society
Oct 5 at 1:54 AM
“Though Moore was at times extremely blunt and firm in his standing, it was obvious that he cared deeply about the American people and that he wanted to fix this injustice and save the millions of people who were victimized.”
It’s not surprising to see an Eagle author so admiring of Michael Moore, but it is disheartening. While Moore is unquestionably a masterful film maker, his grasp of economics is highly questionable.
The quotation above highlights both Moore and the author’s misunderstanding of capitalism and the market economy. The author is extremely vague about what exactly this “injustice” is and what precisely “victimized” people, it can be assumed that capitalism was somehow involved.
This is a common refrain of opponents of a free enterprise system. It is easy, after all, to look at the poor and the suffering and denounce the system in which they live. Moore is right to condemn poverty. He is wrong, however, to blame this poverty on capitalism.
To blame capitalism for creating poverty is like blaming penicillin for an infection. Throughout the course of human history, only one thing has ever lifted people out of crushing poverty: economic freedom.
Look at the poorest nations in the world, and you will not find true economic freedom. Are the poorest farmers in Zimbabwe allowed to sell their crops at a market price? No, the government tells them who to sell to and for how much. Are the impoverished dwellers of the Calcutta slums able to start a small business to feed their families? No, because to get a business license, the government requires 57 different forms to be filled out in a process that takes years (google it).
Here in America and other wealthy countries, the poor are wealthier than the kings of ancient times. Caesar had no television, and Charlamaigne had no antibiotics. There is inequality in capitalism, yes, but everyone grows richer by great leaps.
Ask yourself this: would you rather be a wealthy person in the time of Adam Smith, or a poor person in America today in the time of Michael Moore?
Capitalism has made the whole of humanity, including the very poorest, enormously better off. Without economic liberty, life would still be “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Michael Moore and the author are not the only ones who mourn the suffering of the world. Nor are they the only ones who mistake the source of that suffering. Too many falsely blame capitalism for the problems created by capitalism’s absence.
Capitalism, while inherently unequal, is universally beneficial.
Cat
Oct 5 at 6:36 PM
Yeah…capitalism isn’t universally beneficial. The fact more people than ever are living in chronic poverty kind of refutes any argument you could possibly make.
Alex
Oct 5 at 9:51 PM
Cat, I doubt I will be able to change your mind but you need to consider a few things before you make such simplistic statements.
More people than ever living in poverty? I would love to see numbers to back this up. I have a feeling you’re just quoting a talking point of some far left organization.
Secondly, poverty is a relative term. People who are considered impoverished in the U.S. today are far better off than a large portion of the population 100 years ago. Capitalism is what has allowed food to be produced cheaper and better medicine for poor people (and everyone) to get healthier.
Is there a larger disparity today between the rich and poor than there was at other times in history? Maybe yes, maybe no. But it’s a red herring. The question is whether the general population (poor people included) is better off than it was at a previous time.
In other words, would you rather live at a time when you could afford 5 pounds of food a day while a rich person could afford 20, or would you rather live at a time when you could afford 15 pounds of food and a rich person 100?
Universally beneficial means helping everyone. Capitalism has shown to be the best economic system to accomplish that.
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The Author
Oct 7 at 4:52 PM
In response to AU Free Market Society
You must keep in mind that the term “Capitalism” is not used in it’s most literal sense by the film or by Michael Moore.
I probably should have specified more where I used the terms “injustices” and “victimized” there are instances that his film goes into detail about where corporations have done things such as take out “Dead Peasant” insurance policies on their employees expecting a percentage of them to die so they can turn a profit while the family sits in debt from medical bills and funeral costs.
The rest of your response changes when you look at “capitalism” and how it has warped due to greed and corruption. As for specifics, that’s something that involves a lot of explaining and we all know how messages get confused over the internet. This sounds like a plug for the movie, but if you take a look at it you’ll see what I mean.
Your reference to Zimbabwe doesn’t really fit in this instance, I’m not sure what you are going for, but the regulations in that instance are part of the issue because capitalism in the literal sense is ideally self regulating. The US has a great amount of regulations as well and it causes problems
And referencing the ancient times does not make any sense because as we know the times change and the amount of money one has and how much your money will get you and how poor you are changes in relation to that. Today the top 1% makes more than the bottom 95% COMBINED, which is a staggering statistic to look at.
Alex
Oct 7 at 9:48 PM
To “The Author”
Nice way spinning the statistics - using the same ones Moore does…what a coincidence.
The top 1% controls about a third of the wealth and pays about a third of all income taxes. I.e. 1/3 of all federal income taxes come from 1% of the population. So while they may make more, they also pay far more in taxes.
The top 1%, all those evil CEOs right? Wrong. What Moore doesn’t tell you is that the people who save your life - doctors- are often times in that top 1%. What do you think it takes to get into the top 1%? 10 million a year income, 5 million? How about 275,000 dollars. You think someone who has gone through a decade of post-college training to operate on a brain doesn’t deserve that?
The uneven distribution of wealth isn’t inherently wrong. If 99% of students in a class decide not to study for a test while 1% does, and that 1% gets the only As, is that unjust?
Alex
Oct 7 at 10:02 PM
Also, let’s just take a moment to note the blatant unprofessionalism of the author. You are writing an article about Moore, a highly controversial figure, then tried to refer to his statistics as fact? It doesn’t matter if they’re true or not, you cannot do that. If you did this at a real paper you would lose your job.
If Karl Rove said Syria assists terrorist, would you write that as fact, without even mentioning that Rove said it?
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Oct 11 at 2:17 PM
Alex, I agree with your comment about professionalism.
I cannot, however, agree less with your metaphor about studying. You basically imply that the top 1% of the country works extremely hard while everyone else sits on their lazy asses. That is so blatantly ignorant and disrespectful, I don’t know where to begin. In my opinion, wealth has no relation to amount of work put in. To simplify such a complex, flawed system by comparing it to students in a classroom is a monumental mistake, tantamount to a journalist considering an extremist’s assertions to be facts.
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