Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

Capitalism: A Love Story
2009
****
Director: Michael Moore
Cast:

"The business of America is business", said President Calvin Coolidge. In his latest documentary, Michael Moore takes on capitalism itself. The economic system was adopted to bring prosperity to all Americans, but he argues that these days it serves only the country's richest 1 percent and brings nothing but misery to the rest of the population. In his opinion the traditional entrepreneurial values have made way for both legal (large corporations insure their employees and cash in on their death) and illegal (a judge gets paid for every juvenile he sentences to a correctional facility) forms of greed since the days of Reaganomics. This downward spiral reached its nadir in 2008, when the federal government bailed out the offenders (investment banks) but left the victims (homeless homeowners) to their own devices. Moore once again preaches to the converted, but his enjoyable film made me laugh and cry in disbelief, sometimes within the same scene. However, he ends on a note of misjudged optimism as Obama takes power. As the excellent and more recent Inside Job pointed out, nothing changed.