By Gary Reed
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?
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.
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.
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-1449-Dallas-Libertarian-Examiner~y2009m9d20-Michael-Moores-new-movie-Capitalism-A-Jive-Story
