Public Employee Press

DVD review
Corporate power hurts our economy, Michael Moore says

The phenomenal growth of the U.S. economy in the three decades after World War II created what Michael Moore calls an unquestioning love affair with capitalism. Even the long stagnation of workers’ wages after 1973 did little to evoke basic questions about corporate power in America.

Moore’s new DVD, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” shows the role of our economic system itself in turning the American dream into a long nightmare, with unemployment hovering at an official rate of 10 percent and millions of working people losing their homes to foreclosure.

The trillions of dollars pumped into failing financial institutions have not trickled down to the rest of us, and hope is disappearing as families lose their homes, their jobs and their savings.

The DVD explores the price we pay for our unrequited love of capitalism with both humor and outrage as he confronts the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on ordinary people whose lives have been turned upside down.

He goes looking for answers in Washington and nationwide and finds the all-too-familiar symptoms of a love affair gone astray — lies, abuse, betrayal and government acquiescence to the power of huge corporations.

In his first film, “Roger and Me,” Moore documented how General Motors destroyed his hometown, Flint, Mich., and in “Sicko” he showed how the insurance industry has devastated our health care.

In “Capitalism,” which is available in the Ed Fund Library in Room 211 at DC 37, he ponders our fate after the damage the current system allowed the bankers and brokers to do. The DVD points toward a more hopeful future with solutions such as worker cooperatives, state-run banks, a more democratic economy and exploration of socialist alternatives.

— Ken Nash
DC 37 Education Fund Librarian