Review of Capitalism: A Love Story (2009) by Udayalaksmanakartiyasa H — 01 Feb 2012

With so much discussion focused on the Occupy and 99% movement it's interesting to look back to Michael Moore's documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story. This film is quite possibly his strongest, a scathing rebuke of a government and financial system rigged against lower and middle class. Mostly unencumbered by the usual Moore hijinks's and shenanigans, he frees himself to really cut to the core of the issue. It persuasively portrays a state of society in which the poor have been robbed while the rich and powerful have prospered like never before.

What Moore uncovers should enrage all that see it. Big corporations, rather than helping their employees, have benefited from their misfortune, and even death. While earning record profits, hundreds of thousands of workers are layed off. Entire towns, like Moore's hometown of Flint, Michigan, are being laid to waste. And even though the Dow Jones has recovered we still have an employment rate at 9 percent, with people that have been out of work for a year or more. It becomes clear that what is best is Wall Street is not best for Main Street.

In one interview taken from his previous film about GM, Roger and Me, an executive coldly explains that in order for a company like GM to survive in the modern financial markets, cuts to staff have to be made. That means that thousands that have given their life to a company are being thown out. The company doesn't care about employees but it cares a lot about profits. That's the capitalist system and the profit motive at work.

What makes Moore's film so watchable is that appeal to the 99%. Economic hardship is something felt buy people of all race, creed and political party. Capitalism is not a partisan but a moral film. It is a call to action and a plea for sympathy. If we, the 99 percent, don't fight back, there is no hope. But once we are united, nothing can stop us.