Capitalism and Michael Moore (2010)

Film Review from the March 2010 issue of the Socialist Standard

Like Michael Moore’s other films, Capitalism: A Love Story is brilliant in its way, hard-hitting and funny. He strips away the lies and hypocrisy of “public relations” propaganda to expose the ruthless predators who dominate our society and profit from the misery of working people.

And at the same time he makes us laugh. So far so good. It’s fairly clear what Michael Moore is against. But what he is for? He doesn’t seem to know himself, as he admits in a recent newspaper interview:

“What I’m asking for is a new economic order. I don’t know how to construct that. I’m not an economist. All I ask is that it have two organising principles. Number one, that the economy is run democratically. In other words, the people have a say in how its run, not just the [wealthiest] 1 percent. And number two, that it has an ethical and moral core to it. That nothing is done without considering the ethical nature, no business decision is made without first asking the question, is this for the common good?” (Guardian, 30 January).

We too want democracy to extend to all spheres of social life. For us that’s what socialism is – the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life by the whole community. But genuine democracy will not be achieved by relying on economists or other supposed experts to design it.

By its very nature, democracy must be created by a conscious majority. Michael Moore seems to be saying that in his “new economic order” the wealthiest 1 percent will still exist, even though they will no longer have all the say. He also assumes that there are still going to be “business decisions”. But business decisions are about making money, not serving the common good. Any firm run by managers who care too much about ethics and morality will soon go bust – unless the managers get sacked first!

On one key point, he is right. If the situation he exposes so well is to change, it really does require a “new economic order”. An end to production for profit. The alternative is a society in which the means for producing what we need are owned in common and run democratically. A society in which productive activity is no longer “business” but simply cooperation to satisfy human needs.

This is much more than he offers on his website (www.michaelmoore.com). He says nothing there about any kind of “new order”. It’s all about campaigning for various reforms. These may well be of benefit to working people in the short term, but as they still leave capitalism in place there would always be pressure to reverse any gains made. Worst of all, and despite Michael Moore’s evident disillusionment with Obama, he urges readers to work for change through the Democratic Party – a recipe for endless failure and frustration.

One last point. Michael Moore talks only about changing things in the United States. This national focus makes it impossible even to conceive of a fundamentally new society. That’s because nowadays capitalism is a highly integrated world system and can only be replaced at the global level. It is clear to us that society urgently needs a worldwide system upgrade… from capitalism to socialism!

- leaflet for handing out to those going to see the film.

Proper Gander: At The Movies (2020)

The Proper Gander Column from the June 2020 issue of the Socialist Standard

‘Desperate Measures Not To Save The Planet, But To Save Our Way Of Life’

The makers of documentary film Planet Of The Humans said they wanted it to ignite discussion, but they probably weren’t expecting the backlash it received. Online articles and vlogs debunking and rebutting the movie outnumber those supporting it, while it generated some lively discussion, generally wary of accepting it at face value, on the SPGB’s Discord server after a viewing.

While being freely available to watch, Planet Of The Humans wouldn’t have been nearly as well-known if its publicity hadn’t emphasised Michael Moore being an executive producer. But its main driving force is writer, presenter, producer, director and musician Jeff Gibbs, previously a co-producer of some of Moore’s documentaries. Gibbs is concerned that ‘we humans are poised for a fall from an unimaginable height’ due to our impact on the environment, especially the amount of climate-changing carbon dioxide being pumped into the atmosphere. His view is that our preoccupation with ‘green energy’ as an antidote to this is misguided.

Much of the documentary focuses on arguing that renewable energy sources such as biomass, sunlight and the wind aren’t as environmentally friendly as we’re led to believe. The heavy industry and use of dwindling resources involved in manufacturing sails, turbines and photovoltaic cells, along with their limited lifespan are criticised as being more trouble than they’re worth. Gibbs discusses how solar energy, in particular, has been hyped up as better than it really is. Festivals such as the Earth Day event and Solar Festival in Vermont bragged about being solar powered while quietly using biodiesel generators and the main grid as backup. Exaggerating the use of solar power to disguise reliance on fossil fuels also happens on a wider scale. Coal plants in places such as Las Vegas and Kalona, Iowa were replaced by solar farms, but news reports ignored the natural gas plants built alongside them. Gibbs argues that our reassuring assumption that renewables are replacing fossil fuels is misplaced, as in reality, fossil fuel use in America is still rising.

‘Biomass’ usually means chopping down trees and burning them to generate electricity, but despite this not sounding particularly eco-friendly it still counts as renewable energy. In fact, it’s the main renewable source of electricity, producing much more than solar and wind power. Gibbs finds plenty of protesters at a climate change rally who aren’t in favour of biomass, but attitudes to it differ among environmental campaigning groups. This leads on to the film’s other main point: the links between the environmental movement and big business. The Sierra Club, which calls itself ‘the most enduring and influential grassroots environmental organisation in the United States’, ran the ‘Beyond Coal’ campaign. This supported the use of biomass, and in turn got support from timber companies and partnered with the likes of Exxon Mobil and Chevron. Environmental news website Treehugger.com was founded and funded by loggers Georgia Pacific, which is owned by the Koch brothers, likely the biggest recipients of biomass subsidies in America. There are lots of greenbacks to be made backing green energy.

According to Gibbs, ‘the takeover of the environmental movement by capitalism is now complete. Environmentalists are no longer resisting those with the profit motive but are now collaborating with them’. Latching on to and hyping up so-called green, renewable energy are ‘desperate measures not to save the planet, but to save our way of life’.

Gibbs talks with social psychologist Sheldon Solomon to explore the attitudes which led to our misuse of the environment and are stopping us from addressing it. Gibbs says that both the left and the right assume we can carry on with our culture of consumption, but while the right believes in unlimited resources and religion, the left believes in green energy and hasn’t accepted humans’ own mortality. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t go into how both left and right are misguided in that the system they both support is itself the problem. We cut away from their interesting chat too soon, and as was pointed out during the party’s discussion of the movie, its quick edits of interviews are annoying. Some quotes sound suspiciously like they’ve been taken out of context as we don’t hear what was said before and after.

The film ends with a solemn voiceover: ‘we humans must accept that infinite growth on a finite planet is suicide. We must accept that our human presence is already far beyond sustainability and all that that implies. We must take control of our environmental movement and our future from billionaires and their permanent war on planet Earth. They are not our friends. Less must be the new more and instead of climate change we must at long last accept that it’s not the carbon dioxide molecule destroying the planet, it’s us. It’s not one thing but everything we humans are doing. A human-caused apocalypse. If we get ourselves under control, all things are possible’.

But the film doesn’t suggest solutions to the problems it raises. The nearest it gets to this is when it discusses population levels, an issue which Gibbs’ interviewees feel is ‘the herd of elephants in the room’. Compared with 200 years ago, the global population is ten times larger, and our use of resources is 100 times greater. The film argues that production and consumption should be reined in, but doesn’t dwell on its implied connection between this and population control, nor dare to propose any ways of reducing numbers. By skirting the whole issue, the film ignores how population growth is slowing down overall, and countries with increasing populations tend to be poorer and have a much lower carbon footprint than America and Europe.

Planet Of The Humans’ science fictiony title hints at its fictional science, another problem with its arguments. For instance, critics have pointed out that many of the claims and footage about the efficiency of solar panels are at least ten years out of date. In that time, photovoltaic cells have generally gone from being less than 10 percent efficient to around 20 percent (LINK). When later challenged about this, executive producer and interviewee Ozzy Zehner says that it doesn’t matter, as solar energy still doesn’t have enough impact overall (LINK).

The dubious accuracy of some of Planet Of The Humans’ claims unfortunately detracts from the important points it makes about money-grabbing connections between environmentalists and businesses. Wanting our industries and lifestyles to be in harmony with nature is a laudable aim, but if you think this can be managed in capitalism, as environmentalists do, you’re bound to get sucked into capitalism’s structures and priorities, which put profit before planet. Moore said that the environmental movement’s mistake was to associate themselves with ‘corporate America’, but their greater mistake is to associate themselves with capitalism itself.

Mike Foster

The Blurring Boundaries of Political Spending (2017)

From the January 2017 issue of the Socialist Standard

With the increase in inequality, the influence of corporate political spending is stronger than ever.

In the current free market framework of global politics, regulation is perceived by capitalists as a barrier between big business and an increased accumulation of assets. These free market principles have been applied to many aspects of life, from the deregulation of the financial industry towards the end of the 20th Century, to the increasingly neoliberal state of political finance regulation. In the United States particularly, a common trend has been occurring with regards to political spending. In 2010, the United States saw a Supreme Court decision that would change the role of money in politics by deeming caps on political spending to be ‘unconstitutional’. This was a decision born out of the misuse of the 14th Amendment of the American Constitution and, having had a significant impact on political spending, corporations are now playing an increased role in influencing governments to be capitalist- friendly.

The 14th Amendment and Corporate Personhood

In 1868, the 14th Amendment was added to the American Constitution, with its purpose being to bring equality to all citizens of the United States. Putting this into context, the amendment was made in the wake of the American civil war, and its intention was to protect newly freed slaves from further persecution. Whilst this amendment was added to protect the people, the rise of capitalism as the dominant ideology in the United States has led to this legal construct being twisted to suit the needs of corporations. Capitalists argue that, as corporations are formed and exist within the confines of the United States, they should be entitled to the same constitutional rights as people. This idea has remained in the psyche of the United States since the addition of the 14th Amendment and still holds influence today, with the Supreme Court case of Citizens United vs The Federal Election Commission being based around this theme.

Citizens United vs The Federal Election Commission

This was a Supreme Court case held in response to legislation restricting corporate funding for political advocacy adverts during electoral periods. After deeming Michael Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’ documentary to be a smear campaign against President Bush in 2004, conservative non-profit group Citizens United produced a documentary named ‘Hillary: The Movie’ in the run up to the 2008 primaries. This film contained clips from interviews with major political figures, in which they were highly critical of the career of Hillary Clinton. The Federal Election Commission took Citizens United to the Supreme Court as a result, stating that the documentary’s sole purpose was to influence the opinion of the public. However, Citizens United won the case, with the Supreme Court ruling that caps on political spending violated First Amendment rights to free speech, essentially rendering defunct the legislation for this.

Quid Pro Quo Politics

Whilst the Supreme Court verdict suggested that spending money comes under the remit of the First Amendment rights to free speech, this should not be the case. In capitalist societies, where the sole purpose of production is to accumulate as many assets as possible, big business will only spend money if there is a guarantee of returns on their investment. This causes an issue to the wider public as, with the mammoth increase in political spending since this decision, governments are pushed into the arms of corporations. Noam Chomsky is clear about this sentiment when he says “Concentration of wealth yields concentration of political power”, as the continued influence of money has blurred the boundaries between politics and business.

Brexit Campaign

This theme of spending money to influence political issues has not just been a phenomenon in the United States. In this year’s EU Referendum, just over half of the donations given to groups from both sides of the debate were given by 10 individuals. Breaking down the totals of the top 10 donors, £6.9 million was donated to the Remain campaign, with £9.5 million to the Brexit camp. Thus, the ball has been removed from the court of the wider public when important political decisions are being made, with the tide now very much with the wealthiest individuals in the world. This is a damning statement, particularly when considering that the wealthiest 1 percent of individuals in the world now own at least as much as the rest of the 99 percent combined. It’s a worrying thought that, with enough money, anyone can get what they want. Just ask Mr. Trump.

William Horncastle

Sicko (2007)

Film Review in the December 2007 issue of the Socialist Standard

Sicko (Directed by Michael Moore)

What a devastating indictment of the US health care system this film is! Fifty million Americans have no health insurance, and eighteen thousand die because of this each year. The focus of the film, however, is on those who do have such insurance — and are therefore not the most badly off — but find it of little use when they need it most.

The insurance is with health maintenance organisations or HMOs, though they should really be called wealth maintenance organisations, as they are most concerned about the wealth of their owners and top executives. People pay for health insurance or have it provided by their employer but, when it comes to the crunch and they fall ill or have an accident, the HMO will try every trick in the book to avoid paying up. Surgical procedures may be categorised as experimental and therefore not covered, or people may be denied treatment because they did not disclose some prior medical condition or even failed to diagnose it themselves.

It is the individual cases Moore presents that give the film its impact. One child died because the HMO insisted she be treated in one of their own establishments rather than the hospital that the ambulance had taken her to. A man who had lost the tips of two fingers in an accident with a saw had to choose which one should be replaced, as he could not afford both. A sick and disoriented woman was dumped in the street by the hospital when she could not pay her bills.

Moore contrasts the American system with those in Canada, Cuba, France and the UK. He makes great play with the fact that the cashier in an NHS hospital doesn’t receive payments from patients but instead pays out, reimbursing some of them for their travel expenses. The original NHS idea of free treatment is trotted out, courtesy of Tony Benn, but disappointingly there is no discussion of the extent to which it no longer applies. Further, there’s little if any investigation of the real quality of health treatment in these countries.

All in all, though, this is a forceful attack on the idea that medical treatment should be based on considerations of profit. And just before the end comes a refreshing thought, that society should be more concerned with ‘we’ than with ‘me’.

Paul Bennett

Voice From the Back: Time on their hands (2015)

The Voice From The Back Column from the November 2015 issue of the Socialist Standard

Time on their hands
'Have Half a Million Dollars? Here’s a Massive Roger Dubuis Pocket Watch. Roger Dubuis is a brand that's never shy. If you're a fan, you probably use adjectives like bold and pioneering to describe the ornately skeletonised watches that come from the Geneva-based manufacturer. If you're not a fan, florid might seem a less generous description. Whatever your taste though, there's no denying that the new Excalibur Spider Pocket Time Instrument is flat-out insane' (bloomberg.com, 5 October). There are billions of reasons why this is mad. Here are just 600 million of them, the number, in India alone, of people who defecate in the open. Workers of the world wake up. Pull the chain on this system of obscene wealth and abject poverty.

Hajj Hell
Estimates vary as to how many paid the ultimate price and lost their lives in the rush to submit. The feudalistic theocracy of Saudi Arabia said 769 died in the crush, the Associated Press counted at least 1,453 and Iran over 4,700. Whatever the exact number, the history of the hajj, past, present and future, is tragic. Who is to blame? Mohammed? No, even though, unlike Jesus, there is convincing evidence he lived, we cannot really blame a man long dead. The moronic mullahs who failed to give advance warning of the impending deaths? No, because they cannot see the future any more than eBible Fellowship leader Chris McCann who stated the world would pass away on 7 October. But, according to one report, a class element is involved: the two waves of pilgrims converged on a narrow road 'which had been partly closed to allow a VIP Saudi prince to jump the cue [sic] causing people to suffocate or be trampled to death' (dissidentvoice.org, 7 October).

Stephen Hawking boldly goes....socialist?
'If machines produce everything we need, the outcome will depend on how things are distributed. Everyone can enjoy a life of luxurious leisure if the machine-produced wealth is shared, or most people can end up miserably poor if the machine-owners successfully lobby against wealth redistribution. So far, the trend seems to be toward the second option, with technology driving ever-increasing inequality' (huffingtonpost.com, 10 October). Socialists, preferring the first option, are not ashamed to appropriate Healey’s First Law of Holes to remind fellow members of the working class to stop digging. A world of free access and production for use not profit is ours for the taking. Make it so!

Moore nonsense
Meaningful change cannot come about through leaders, chasing reforms or minority action. Michael Moore disagrees: ’it doesn't take a lot; just a few people have got to do something, not a lot of people. No change has ever occurred with the masses doing it. Fewer than 25 percent supported the American Revolution in the Colonies, right? Jesus has 12 guys that fished! ' (cbsnews.com, 2 October). But only the masses can do it! Meanwhile, in the words of William Morris, ‘our business... is the making of socialists, i.e., convincing people that socialism is good for them and is possible. When we have enough people of that way of thinking, they will find out what action is necessary for putting their principles into practice. Until we have that mass of opinion, action for a general change that will benefit the whole people is impossible.'

$mith & We$$on
Moore is in favour of more gun controls. The manufactures are too, as such talk improves sales. 'Renewed calls for tougher gun control laws sent gun stocks surging on Monday as investors expected an increase in gun sales. The value of Smith & Wesson’s shares went up by 7.29% and Sturm, Ruger & Co increased by 2.75%. It was another good day for gun stock investors. Overall this year, the value of Smith & Wesson’s shares has increased by more than 80% and that of Sturm, Ruger increased by more than 60% – making them some of the best-performing stocks of 2015' (Guardian, 5 October).

Clueless capitalist
'Lord Sugar says today's poor have never had it so good, with mobile phones, computers and televisions making a mockery of claims of deprivation' (Daily Telegraph, 4 October). Just 85 capitalists have accumulated as much wealth between them as half the world's total population combined. Yet the 99 percent suffer poverty because they, unlike the capitalists, do not have direct access to the means of production and distribution.

Capitalism Incorporated (2004)

Film Review from the December 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Corporation, a recently released film directed by Mark Achban, Jennifer Abbot and Joel Bakan, begins with a little US political history, observing how, in the 19th century, a “corporation” was a “benevolent” association of people with a government charter to serve “the public good”. When, in the late 1860s, the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution recognised the slave as having human rights, the nascent corporate elite of the time had their lawyers stake a claim to the same rights with the Supreme Court. They fought and won, and the state henceforth recognised the corporation as a human being, a person in law, with the same right to life, liberty and property.

   

This leads to one of the big questions of the film: if corporations are legally defined as people, then what kind of people are they? One way the film addresses this question is to call in the FBI’s Consultant on Psychopaths, Dr Robert Hare. Hare proceeds to run through a check-list of the traits of your run-of-the-mill psychopath before concluding that the modern corporation, bearing no moral responsibility for its actions, is very much the prototypical psychopath.

   

Much of the remainder of the film is given over to proving this claim beyond all reasonable doubt and many authoritative witnesses are wheeled in to testify. And what a selection of witnesses there are! Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Naomi Klein, Anita Roddick, Vandana Shiva, Michael Moore; experts from every field and all manner of labour rights organisations and grass roots activists, economists such as Milton Friedman and many CEOs. Their statements amount to a damning examination of the nature and personality of the modern corporation, charting its growth, its extending influence and downright indifference to democracy and how, as one commentator observes, it has turned into a “monster, trying to devour as much profit as possible at anyone’s expense.”

No such thing as enough

What we are presented with is an image of all-powerful organisations running wild, rabid with greed, superpowers, for whom there is “no such thing as enough” (Moore), for whom “everything is legitimate in the pursuit of profit” (Roddick). Modern corporations are presented as the “new high priests”, more powerful than governments and accountable only to their shareholders, their brand labels protected by more legislation than covers the rights of the children who sew them onto their overpriced merchandise.

   

The film pits competing ideas on the modern corporation against one another. We are at one stage shown the offices of the National Labour Committee and hear Executive Director Charles  Kernaghan revealing the level of exploitation of workers in the Dominican Republic (who for instance earn 75 cents for each Nike jacket that sells for $178 and 3 cents for a tee shirt that retails at $14.) We are shown the living conditions of those same desperate workers and hear their own testimony as to the level of their destitution and then listen to Michael Walker of the corporate think-tank, the Fraser Institute, expounding his views on the role competitive markets play in providing for the economic and social well-being and how he believes firms such as Nike are an “enormous godsend” to people in the Dominican Republic

   

The film contains much that is totally fascinating. One section looks at big business and its penchant for the dictatorial regime. We are shown how a punch card system devised and regularly maintained by IBM (operating out of New York) processed millions of concentration camp victims, and how Coca Cola, faced with the possibility of having its operation curtailed in Nazi Germany, simply changed its name to Fanta. Much evidence is presented as to how corporate allegiance to profit transcends its loyalty to national flags and we are presented with one startling fact: that in one week 57 US companies were fined for trading with enemies of the US. Contemplating big business’s links to tyrannical regimes, one commentator asks “is it narcissism that compels them to seek their reflection in the regimented structure of fascist regimes?”

   

One of several cases studies the film presents is that relating to Monsanto (famous for Agent Orange and  50,000 birth defects in Vietnam) and its manufacture of  Posilac. This was a drug which, when injected into cows, increased their milk yield. That the world was awash with milk did not concern Monsanto; they were far more interested in profits and eventually were supplying a quarter of US dairy herds with the product. But because cows were not meant to produce so much milk, their udders went into overdrive and became infected with mastitis, the pus from which infected the milk. Not only were humans suffering the effects of the chemicals injected into the milk, their milk was now infected with mastitis pus. Monsanto’s reaction was to deny all allegations and to lie like condemned murderers.

Reckless pollution

The modern corporation is perhaps most vilified for its total lack of respect for the environment and biosphere on which all life on Earth depends. Ray Anderson, the CEO of Interface Inc, who has won much acclaim promoting the idea that environmental responsibility makes good business sense, is seen addressing an audience of business leaders in North Carolina. Greeting them as “fellow plunderers”, he goes on to tell them that there is “not an industrial company in the world that is sustainable.”

   

Robert Weismann of Multinational Monitor reminds us that the cost of getting caught for their corporate transgressions – i.e. environmental pollution – is, more often than not, less than the cost of complying with existing environmental legislation. Dr Vandara Shiva, physicist and ecologist, despairingly contemplates the suicide gene built into new strains of cash crop seeds, the new terminator technology that makes the third world farmer dependent ever on the seed supplier (instead of traditionally putting aside a portion of the harvest as seeds for the following year), and calls them inventions of a ear), and calls them inventions of a “brutal mind”.

   

For the corporation, nothing is sacred. Even the US Patent Office has conceded defeat in its attempts to stop them patenting life forms, bearing out Roddick’s sentiment that every means is legitimate if the end be profit. Climbing down from one seven-year battle with big business, the Office had this to say: “You can patent anything in the world which is alive except a full birth human being.”

   

The film nears an end with a case study of the privatisation of the water supply of Cochabamba, Bolivia, at the behest of the World Bank, focusing  particularly on the town’s residents and their run in with the forces of the state acting on behalf of Bechtel, a San Francisco based company who bought the water company. So keen were the powers that be to force the people to bow to the power of Bechtel that they demolished their homes for non-payment of their exorbitant water rates and made the collecting of rain water illegal. The frustration spilled onto the streets with huge demonstrations and riots and violent clashes with the police. Eventually, though, Bechtel were forced to pull out of their Bolivian venture, but not before they had put in a claim for $25 million in compensation.

Weakness

It is from this case study and other cited instances of green activism that we are meant to draw inspiration; the message being that the corporation should not underestimate the power of the people, that “the workers, united, can never be defeated”.  Of course, corporations are advised to tidy up their act too. Michael Moore tells us that there should be more governmental controls and the film ends with Moore hoping the film will prompt people “to do something, anything, to get the world back in our hands”. This suggests that Moore, and others who promote similar ideas in the film, are missing the point. Granted, it is commendable, heroic even, that workers are prepared to often risk life and limb to defend themselves and to confront the most harrowing acts perpetrated by corporations. But it is a dangerous to believe that such grassroots action amounts to wresting control of the world away from its current owners.

   

If anyone considers this film a trumpet call for social change, a reveille for revolution, they are mistaken. The capitalist system is left unscathed. Nowhere is the market-driven profit system as such challenged. Nowhere are all of the case studies and criticism of corporate power and abuse rooted in a wider context. Nowhere does a commentator lambast the global “can’t pay, can’t have” society that consigns the greater portion of the population of the planet to lives of abject misery. And no interviewee comes near to demanding the abolition of the capitalist system and its replacement with a system of society based on free access.  Capitalism is taken for granted as being immutable and all that is being asked at the end is that corporations wear a smiley face and stop behaving so horridly.

   

Moore may well contemplate why such films are broadcast by TV corporations, in spite of the fact that they attack corporate power; for the record, he suggests it is because there is profit to be made by them and he may be partly right. But he fails to grasp that this, and similar films like Fahrenheit 911, nowhere query the basis of class society – the set-up that allows the ownership of property by one privileged class, and the consequent enslavement of one class by another, is in no way threatened and the TV company broadcasting programmes that reveal corporate crimes is aware of this.

   

I don’t really want to rubbish the whole film but, in truth, The Corporation simply echoes the sentiments of the anti-globalisation movement – the demand for greater corporate responsibility, reform of international institutions, expansion of democracy and fairer trading conditions, for instance – while allowing capitalism to carry on perpetrating every social ill that plagues us.

The Corporation is undoubtedly a remarkable exposé of the modern corporation at its ugliest, of the lengths corporations will go to and the depths they will stoop to in the search for profit. The film stands as a brilliant critique of corporate power and everything we associate with it and is a much needed resource in revealing the insanity of the present system. And as far as enthusing green activists and lending weight to the anti-globalisation cause is concerned, the film is a powerful tool. But that’s not the way out.

John Bissett

Moore of the Same (2004)

Book Review from the January 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Michael Moore is a phenomenon. His book Stupid White Men has become a bestseller, having sold well over half a million copies in the UK, and he is a massively popular film-maker (Bowling for Columbine), as well as a stage and TV comedian-cum-political critic and activist (see the January 2003 Socialist Standard for some Socialist comments on him). His new book Dude, Where's My Country? (published by Allen Lane) is a further example of his talent for invective.

Dude really lays into President George 'Dubya' Bush, attacking him as mendacious, cowardly and corrupt, plus other less pleasant attributes. While much of what is said in the first chapter is in the form of questions rather than outright accusations, it does at the very least present some interesting points. For instance, the Bush family have had, and still have, close business links with that wealthy Saudi family the bin Ladens (who have by no means broken off relations with their 'black sheep' member Osama). The Bushes also have business connections to the Saudi royal family, despite the fact that Saudi Arabia is a brutal dictatorship featuring arbitrary arrest, with no political parties or trade unions. Of course the US benefits from massive amounts of Saudi oil and Saudi investments, which is why Dubya and Blair have been in no hurry to “defend freedom” by invading it.

Were the 11 September attacks really organised by some dissident faction of the Saudi royal family? Of greater general significance perhaps is Moore's claim that Dubya's campaign for the presidency was partly financed by companies like Enron and Unocal. They wanted a president who would let them get their hands on Afghanistan's oil and gas. They were considerably helped in this by Dubya's appointment of a Unocal consultant as US ambassador to Afghanistan and installation of a former Unocal employee as the new Afghan leader. And – guess what – an agreement to build a new pipeline to export Afghan gas was signed just three and a half months after 11 September, which provided an excuse for getting rid of the uncooperative Taliban. And did Dubya really run scared on the morning of 11 September? It hardly matters, though I suppose it would be nice to think he is a coward as well as a bloodthirsty bully.

Then we are introduced to even more of Dubya's lies, most especially his confident pronouncement that Iraq had nuclear weapons. This is followed by similar exposure of claims about Saddam Hussein having biological and chemical weapons: he certainly did have them in the 1980s, when he used them against the Kurds, having obtained them from US companies in the first place. Moore is almost apoplectic on this count:

“Weapons of mass destruction? Oh yeah, he had them at one time. All we had to do was check the receipts and count the profits as they rolled into the bank account of the campaign backers of Reagan and Bush.”

As for the view that Saddam was the world's most evil man, there have been plenty of rivals for this crown, many of them aided by the USA. Even apart from Saudi Arabia (see above), the cases of the murderous Mobutu of Zaire and the genocidal Suharto of Indonesia spring to mind.

What, next, of the supposed campaign to oppose terrorism? Moore sees the best way to stop terrorism as being . . . to stop acting as terrorists. But this campaign has had primarily domestic uses:

“Perhaps the biggest success in the War on Terror has been its ability to distract the nation from the Corporate War on Us. In the two years since the attacks of 9/11, American businesses have been on a punch-drunk rampage that has left millions of average Americans with their savings gone, their pensions looted, their hopes for a comfortable future for their families diminished or extinguished”

So we are told about executives who pocket millions while their companies' share prices fall through the floor, of other companies that take out life insurance policies on their employees but name the company as the beneficiary, of cutbacks on pensions and other benefits. Also of the thirteen thousand families who make up the top 0.01% of the American population but control as much wealth as the poorest twenty million.

All this is not only instructive but presented in a heartfelt and amusing way. Moore's breathless style can grate after a while, but Dude is never dull or heavy-going. And yet, and yet, and yet: it is ultimately plain unsatisfactory, with little real understanding of what drives present-day society or what needs to be done to replace it. Part of the problem is that Dubya, with his mangling of the English language, his evident ignorance of the world, and his inability to present his thoughts coherently, is such a soft target. The last chapter proclaims that “There is probably no greater imperative facing the nation than the defeat of George W. Bush in the 2004 election”, notes how useless the Democrats are, and then settles on a suitable anti-Bush candidate – none other than Oprah Winfrey! And if she refuses (and she has said she won't stand), his next choice is General Wesley Clark, formerly Supreme Allied Commander of NATO. It's as if one were to read a devastating description of the predations of some criminal gang, and then be told that the crucial task was to give them a new name.

Sadly, Moore fails to see that Dubya's lies and corruption are not causes of the problem but symptoms, brought about by the same factors which result in wars and poverty and inequality. No matter who is in nominal charge of capitalism, whether in the US or anywhere else, it will remain the same rapacious animal, attacking ordinary people both at home and abroad. This will only finish when workers get rid, not just of Dubya, but of the whole gang of politicians, of capitalist parasites, and indeed of the capitalist system itself. We must hope that some of the many who will read this book will draw more radical conclusions than its author.

Paul Bennett

Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

Film Review from the August 2004 issue of the Socialist Standard

Michael Moore’s latest documentary film, Fahrenheit 9/11, grossed $24 million in its opening weekend in the US. Despite initial attempts to stop the film’s distribution and screening and right-wing claims that the film is inaccurate, it has been seen by sell-out cinema audiences and won all manner of applause from US ‘liberals’ and the Left everywhere.

    

Moore has clearly made a first-rate documentary here, showing George Bush up as the first class moron we always knew him to be and heading a corrupt administration drooling oil and dripping from every pore with workers’ blood, unashamedly prepared to go to any lengths in the name of profit.

    

While Moore can rip into the Republican administration over its obsession with Iraq and its intense love affair with the Saudi elite, he neglects to mention that President Clinton had  Iraq bombed almost on a daily basis for eight years – the 1998 cruise missile attack aside – and helped enforce an embargo that left half a million dead. Neither does Moore point out that high level dealings with Saudi Arabia have been going on since the 1940s.  Furthermore, whereas the film gives full exposure to the visit by the Taliban to Texas in 1997 to sign an oil deal, the fact that Clinton was in power at the time is also overlooked.

    

However, nowhere does Moore locate his film in a wider social and political context – in the capitalist system itself, in a system racked with contradiction, an exploitative social system that consigns hundreds of millions throughout the world to abject poverty. While he clearly makes the link between oil, profits and the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, he nowhere suggests that war, all war, is the continuation of business by other means; that in capitalism wars are fought over trade routes, overseas markets, mineral wealth or areas of influence; that if you build empires you have to be prepared to kill people.

    

But Moore is no revolutionary, no class warrior. In the film he talks to a woman whose family have a long military tradition and who proudly unfurls the Stars and Stripes outside her house each morning. Moore, ever the patriot, suggests she must be a proud woman and himself qualifies her pride in her soldiering offspring with the line “it’s a great country” – and well worth dying for,  no doubt? Later on, and referring to the many US soldiers from impoverished towns – such as Flint, with 50 percent unemployment – who have been killed since the invasion of Iraq, Moore says: “They offer to give up their lives so we can be free.” In this, Moore shows he holds the same ideas of freedom that Bush and his ilk are always asking workers to defend.  In a land where there exists a ‘Patriot Act’ that restricts many hitherto taken-for-granted ‘freedoms’, where trade unionists have recently been forbidden to engage in strike activity, where speaking out against the status quo is seen as dangerously subversive, where the prison population borders on two million, freedom largely means that workers choose which capitalist is to exploit them. Moore leaves the capitalist system very much unscathed and so free to go on killing.

   

I also detect a racist undertone in the film when it ridicules Bush’s “coalition of the willing” – those small countries who lent support in the hope they would be well rewarded. Britain aside, which gave its full support the invasion of Iraq, small nations such as the Republic of Palau, Costa Rica, Iceland, Romania, Netherlands and Morocco also offered to help out. The imagery that accompanies the mentioning of the latter smaller nations, the voice-over being intentionally slow and moronic sounding, is stereotypical and demeaning if anything: footage from the film Nosferatu accompanies the mentioning of Romania, Palau has native dancers festooned in flowers and a bare chested man driving a cow-drawn cart, there are Vikings for Iceland, cannabis-smoking for the Netherlands and Morocco is mentioned with footage of rampaging monkeys. Are we to assume that there are countries with large armies which would be a welcome addition to a coalition (i.e. Britain, which never actually gets a mention), so why did the US have to settle for the pathetic?

   

Likewise, considering the US Invasion of Afghanistan just after 9/11, real analysis is sacrificed for a sneer at the size of the invasion force itself – smaller than the manpower needed to police Manhattan, we are told – so are we to assume that it  should have been many times bigger?

    

The great danger with Fahrenheit 9/11 lies in its frontal attack on the present Republican administration leaving viewers assuming that a USA headed by a more liberal – perhaps Democrat – government would not be so militaristic or friendly with its corporate elite. In truth any newly elected government, one headed by Nader included, would serve primarily as the executive arm of corporate America, charged with pursuing the interests of the profit-hungry US ruling elite at home and aboard, ready always to call in the troops and bombers if US profits are threatened. The history of US foreign policy since 1945 is testament to this fact.

    

Bush may well lose the coming election, perhaps partly thanks to this film, but capitalism will continue in the US as it does everywhere else on the planet, and the myriad injustices Moore himself catalogues in his book Stupid White Men will continue. Moore is building up a lot of false hopes in targeting Bush and his administration as the villains of the piece. Whereas people know Bush is a war-mongering stooge of big business – something he goes to no great lengths to conceal – Kerry gives the illusion that he can work wonders if elected, and Moore helps with the fantasy by saying, in a nutshell, the sooner we get rid of the village idiot the better.

    

Whilst one can understand why audiences, who have watched Fahrenheit 9/11, have chanted “Bush out, Bush out” as the film ended, they are mistaken in thinking the unseating of the Texan idiot will better their lot one iota. They will exist as wage slaves, every aspect of their lives subordinated to the dictates of capital, just as much under Kerry as under Bush.

John Bissett

Weekly Bulletin of The Socialist Party of Great Britain 144

Dear Friends,

Welcome to the 144th of our weekly bulletins to keep you informed of changes at Socialist Party of Great Britain @ MySpace.

We now have 1565 friends!

Recent blogs:

The Massacre of Fruit

The Meaning of Social Revolution

Modern Technology and Socialism

Quote for the week:

"These bastards who run our country are a bunch of conniving, thieving, smug pricks who need to be brought down and removed and replaced with a whole new system that we control." Michael Moore, 2003, Dude, where's my country?

Continuing luck with your MySpace adventures!

Robert and Piers

Socialist Party of Great Britain

Swing with The Internationale

From the closing credits of Michael Moore's "Capitalism: A Love Story', Tony Babino belts out what is now my favourite version of The Internationale:

"Speed it up", indeed.

Capitalism and Michael Moore

Cross-posted from the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog,

Like Michael Moore’s other films, 'Capitalism: A Love Story', is brilliant in its way, hard-hitting and funny. He strips away the lies and hypocrisy of “public relations” propaganda to expose the ruthless predators who dominate our society and profit from the misery of working people.

And at the same time he makes us laugh. So far so good. It’s fairly clear what Michael Moore is against. But what he is for? He doesn’t seem to know himself, as he admits in a recent newspaper interview:

“What I'm asking for is a new economic order. I don't know how to construct that. I'm not an economist. All I ask is that it have two organising principles. Number one, that the economy is run democratically. In other words, the people have a say in how its run, not just the [wealthiest] 1 percent. And number two, that it has an ethical and moral core to it. That nothing is done without considering the ethical nature, no business decision is made without first asking the question, is this for the common good?” (Guardian, 30 January).

We too want democracy to extend to all spheres of social life. For us that’s what socialism is – the common ownership and democratic control of the means of life by the whole community. But genuine democracy will not be achieved by relying on economists or other supposed experts to design it.

By its very nature, democracy must be created by a conscious majority. Michael Moore seems to be saying that in his “new economic order” the wealthiest 1 percent will still exist, even though they will no longer have all the say. He also assumes that there are still going to be “business decisions”. But business decisions are about making money, not serving the common good. Any firm run by managers who care too much about ethics and morality will soon go bust – unless the managers get sacked first!

On one key point, he is right. If the situation he exposes so well is to change, it really does require a “new economic order”. An end to production for profit. The alternative is a society in which the means for producing what we need are owned in common and run democratically. A society in which productive activity is no longer “business” but simply cooperation to satisfy human needs.

This is much more than he offers on his website (www.michaelmoore.com). He says nothing there about any kind of “new order”. It’s all about campaigning for various reforms. These may well be of benefit to working people in the short term, but as they still leave capitalism in place there would always be pressure to reverse any gains made. Worst of all, and despite Michael Moore’s evident disillusionment with Obama, heurges readers to work for change through the Democratic Party – a recipe for endless failure and frustration.

One last point. Michael Moore talks only about changing things in the United States. This national focus makes it impossible even to conceive of a fundamentally new society. That’s because nowadays capitalism is a highly integrated world system and can only be replaced at the global level.

It is clear to us that society urgently needs a worldwide system upgrade…from capitalism to socialism!

Stefan

Moore's musings

From the Socialism Or Your Money Back blog
We might not agree with Michael Moore upon everything in his new movie "Capitalism: A Love story" but in this interview there are points in which we do share . One of those is that the capitalist class rule by virtue of the consent of the many.

" Capitalism is not only an economic system that legalizes greed, it also has at its foundation a political system of capitalism that is, 'We have to buy the political system because we don't have enough votes. We're only 1% of the votes. We have to buy the people, and we have to buy the people by convincing them if they work hard, they too can be rich one day.' "

"I think they

[The wealthiest Americans] exposed themselves to a lot of middle class people who did believe in their system and they showed everybody the Ponzi scheme that it is. It's set up like a pyramid, so that the richest 1% at the top have more financial wealth than the 95% beneath them.
But the trick here is to get the 95% believing that if they work hard and slave away, they would get to the top of the pyramid. Of course, as we know, only a few people can stand on top of a pyramid. The fact that this crash exposed our economic system as a corrupt scam was something I didn't intend on happening while I was making the movie."
"Where's the cure for cancer? Where's the bullet train to take us from New York to L.A. in 10 hours? Where are the alternative energy systems to save us when we run out of oil? I wish these were the priorities. But when Wall Street sucks up our best mathematicians, physicists, engineers, when they should be working on these other things and instead they're working to create derivatives ... c'mon. We're in deep, deep trouble. We need the best minds working on these things."
In the movie , Moore ends with this conclusion: "Capitalism is an evil and you can't regulate evil. You have to replace it with something that is good for everyone."
He is not quite there yet on understanding what that "something" is but hopefully , he is getting there and also hopefully so are many others .

Alan Johnstone

The Road To Hell

From the Socialist Courier blog

Michael Moore, American TV programme and movie maker, is a compassionate guy who hates what capitalism does to people and strives to right what he sees as wrongs. Sadly, he hasn't a clue about how capitalism works and is a prime example of the idealist who fights effects but leaves causes untouched.

He thinks that corporations and the filthy-rich should be content with less wealth and should share profits with their workers. What a hope, but here in Scotland we have our own version of Michael Moore the showbiz personality of Elaine C. Smith.

In her column in the Sunday Mail (December 31st) Elaine, having applauded "the risk-takers" and endorsed the capital-labour relationship, lambasts business fat cats who pocket huge sums of money and asks, "Do they really need all that money? Couldn't they have just put a couple of hundred quid in the pay packets of their workers?"

What Elaine doesn't realise that those fat cats get their wealth by trying to ensure that their business maximise their profits and keep shareholders happy. What investors want is not smaller but bigger profits and dividends.

It's not just fat cats and shareholders who want more: everybody does, even working class savers with, say, building societies look for the highest rate of interest. That's what capitalism is all about.

Michael Moore and Elaine C. Smith want a caring, sharing capitalism and although they mean well they should remember that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Vic Vanni

Open Letter To Michael Moore (2003)

From the January 2003 issue of the Socialist Standard

Dear Mike,

I owe you, man. I've been watching your work for years now, from the first series of TV Nation onwards. I've enjoyed your rigour, integrity and sense of rye humour. I've been to see Bowling for Columbine – twice! By my calculations that means I've personally given you 48p. I got my hands, however, on a free "damaged" copy of Stupid White Men through a friend of mine. My calculations on that are that I've probably just cost you £1.50. So I owe you £1.02. Well, first off, let me tell you about the Socialist Standard. OK, that's free on the web, but if you bought the magazine, it'd have cost you a quid. So that's square. That leaves a wee bit left over, though. So I reckon I'll give you my twopenneth.

No one can doubt your heart is in the right place, nor your commitment. Your palpable anger at the destruction of communities by big business; at the bullying of the poor and defenceless by the rich and powerful; at the hypocrisy of our rulers; shows clearly in all your work. Yet, the answers that you present, your suggested course of action, I feel, just aren't enough. It's entirely laudable to say "Just get involved" – after all, if people don't get involved at all, then nothing will ever change. You've shown in yourself how simply turning up and noisily making demands can make the rich and powerful bend and twist to do the popular thing.

The problem is, however, that unless the people "getting involved" have some clear idea about where they are going, and what they want, they'll just end up pestering our masters for different crumbs from the table for ever: as those devious buggers spin and turn in the wind, giving just enough to stay in power. When the workers of St. Louis took control of the city in 1871, for instance, they had free reign to do as they pleased, to work for their own betterment. They came to power though, without any ideas, with no plan for running their own lives, and so slowly melted away again, to return to ordinary drudgery on the railroads.

Of course, America is the country that brought us philosophical pragmatism. This tells in your approach, taking whatever chances are available. In Stupid White Men you tell of how you tried to persuade the Green faction of the Capitalist Party's presidential candidate, Ralph Nader, to bargain from his position of holding the swing vote. "We hold all the power" you told them. What, though, did that power amount to? It amounted to being in a position to wring a few concessions from candidates from other sections of the Capitalist Party, dragging them "'to the left".

This maximum power for your candidate was only scheduled to last "for the next week or so", before handing absolute power over to someone who would "keep no promises". After all, once leaders are firmly ensconced in power, what need have they for king makers, whether other candidates or mere voters? The whole point of being a leader is to exercise power as you see fit. Bargaining with leaders is like letting a prisoner out for a stroll, and expecting them to come back.

You yourself admit there is not much difference in voting between different wings of the Capitalist Party. As you point out, Ronald "Evil Empire" Regan imposed stricter controls on car manufacturers on miles per gallon usage of petrol than "Slick Willy" Clinton. You could go further, and show how Eisenhower stuck by the welfare state as much as Johnson, who in turn was just as Hawkish as Cheney. In fact, you could show that, despite their protestations that the opposing faction are the paragon of all evil, that both sides are always prepared to steal each others' policies. Your list of how the Democratic faction of the Capitalist Party's voting records accord with the Republican faction's shows as much.

The reason for this is not hard to find – they're not really in charge at all. Any policy they may impose will have to accord with the ongoing operation of capitalism, and the rules of that system, or they won't work at all. After all, Reagan controlled miles per gallon because the world was still dealing with the effects of the 1972 oil shock and recession. Clinton was dealing with a time when oil was flowing free and constraints on use would have been constraints on profit rather than a support. So, Nader's maximum moment of power amounted to being able to ask for a few concessions from someone whose maximum moment of power would be asking for a few concessions from the people who really own the world.

No wonder politicians prefer to ape the noises of these parasites. They might as well make the right sounds so that they can kid themselves that they really are part of the gang in charge, and that the policies they are implementing really are their own. Who wants to sound like they are championing the cause of ineffectual groups?

Any leader is going to find themself in this position. Imagine (just for a second) that Nader did win the presidency (no, seriously), committed as he was to the continued existence of capitalism with a green face. He would have to make policies that conformed with one logical premise – the law of no profit, no production. All his policies would have to allow the owners of America to make at least the average rate of profit from their investments, or else they would launch a capital strike, declining to invest in industries or even withdrawing altogether. That is, no matter what he is like as a man, no matter how honest his followers, or their determination, he would have to adapt his policies to running capitalism the only way it can be run, in the interests of them as own it.

Even were (for some odd reason) someone to come to power in the US and nationalise everything that moved, just as in the state-capitalist states in the old Soviet bloc (and we all know how well that worked), they would still be subject to this self same law. Whilst they might not face the same irritating bunch of rich people, they would still need to operate the circulation of goods produced by waged-labour at a profit as a first condition of their policies.

This law afflicts even our rulers. As Lord Byron said, "there can be no freedom, even for the masters, among slaves". Even though you state that "there is no recession, my friends. No downturn," but that it is a deliberate machiavellian ploy by our masters to prevent us asking for a share of their wealth, the fact is that they are compelled into cutting back by the logic of their system.

If they did not disinvest, cut back, rationalise and downsize, any competitor who did so would get the better of them, and thus drive them out of the market. They may still be rolling in money themselves, but they cannot use it to create any more jobs. If they allowed their profits to fall behind relative to the size of their capital advanced, they would risk losing the lot (poor diddums). They just aren't going to allow that to happen.

The fact is that the crime of capitalism is not that some have money and refuse to give it to others - and the money is, as you rightly point out, there. No, the crime is that the rules of the system mean that all that money must uselessly slush around – protecting the stakes advanced by the capitalists – rather than going into doing the useful things that communities like Flint Michigan require. This inevitable waste stems from the law of no profit no production, and the whole system of producing commodities for exchange on the market (like SUV's) to be bought, rather than produced directly to fulfil a need.

So, bang goes your whole strategy. Badgering the rich and powerful like a toddler pulling at their parent's trousers – mummy, mummy, we want some welfare! Despite your call to get involved, to go out and get for ourselves, the result is that it involves going like naughty children up to some corporate master, and hassling them (preferably with an embarrassing film crew present to broadcast their perfidy and meanness to the world – no wonder Neil (brother of George) Bush was so relieved to run into you without your camera. It must be irritating for them to subjected to even that level of public scrutiny and expectation.

Your whole attempt to portray welfare as in the interests of our masters reveals the truth behind the welfare state that has gone before (Chapter Four "Kill Whitey"). They precisely instituted the welfare state on the expectation that it would increase their profits and help their system run smoother. Administering a share of the wealth to the workers, rather than allowing the market to do it, lest freak market conditions result in sections of the working class getting more than our masters' need for profits could allow. Now it has become less profitable to run (as well as too rigid), they have tried (quite successfully) to cut it back. So, we can see that any gains our masters may grant (because they are either in, or at least not against, their interest) can be revoked and re-instated as they see fit. Things may well get better again for places like Flint, only to be blighted again the next time the law of no profit no production demands it.

So, what's with badgering you, then? Why my twopenneth? Am I just getting on at someone powerful to try and get them to help promote my cause? Well, no. I was short of material for this month's magazine and you presented an opportunity of providing me with a focus for a simple message. If, as you most certainly do, you care about the widespread poverty and misery produced by US capitalism, then you need to go down to first principles.

Reject leaders. You don't need to be a cheer leader for Nader, it doesn't matter what he's like as a human. Both the capitalist system and the whole relationship of leader to led means that one is going to betray the other pretty quickly after assuming power (usually followers betraying leaders by actually expecting them to be able to fulfil their promises). We have enough strength in our own communities without having to bow and scrape to our masters.

Go beyond capitalism. Recognise that it is the whole system of producing things for a chaotic market that produces inequality and poverty, and think about how we could go about making the change to a situation in which we use all that idle talent, ability and imagination that you reveal and revel in your documentaries, to produce things directly for people's needs.

If we reach out across the workers of the world, who share more in common with you than any American capitalist, then we can create a co-operative commonwealth spanning the globe, which will put an end to all the wars, violence and strife caused by the competition between capitalist rivals, and which spill over into our communities and our schools. That commonwealth though, always starts with individuals, individuals like you, and anyone else who might read this open letter.

That's my twopenneth, I consider the debt settled.

For World Socialism,

Pik Smeet.