Yes, Capitalism: A Love Story is packed with Michael Moore’s
“confrontational antics” (as Kenneth Turan calls them in the Los
Angeles Times), and Moore explores the evils of capitalism “in his
usual hopscotching fashion” (as Stephanie Zacharek bemoans on Salon.com—Moore leaps from a strike in a
Chicago factory, to an eviction in some rural place, to a speech in
Congress, to the collapse of a for-profit juvenile detention center in
Pennsylvania, to an apartment of an underpaid airline pilot, and so on,
and so on). And, of course, Moore has lots of “queasy joke[s]”
(as Manohla Dargis too cleverly observes in the New York Times).
But by focusing on the antics, the hopscotching, the jokes, and on
Moore himself, these critics and others have missed the real greatness
of this documentary. Because I saw it, the main business of this review
will be to point it out to those who didn’t.
Let’s begin with a moment in Michael Moore’s first documentary,
Roger & Me, which came out in the most important year of the
last quarter of the 20th century, 1989. But before describing and
considering the moment in Roger & Me, let’s quickly revisit
1989. So many things happened that year: The Soviet Army pulled out of
Afghanistan, negotiations for Nelson Mandela’s release began, and,
finally, the Berlin Wall fell, an event that was read as a victory for
American-style capitalism and a loss for “really existing socialism.”
The world now had only one choice, one future, one
course—American-style capitalism. Before I leave this digression
and return to the moment in Roger & Me, a quick definition
of American-style capitalism. It aspires to this economic condition:
weak labor unions, an absence of a social safety net, the privatization
of anything that can be
privatized, and the transformation of
citizenship into entrepreneurship. In American-style capitalism, the
whole society is a market and what you bring to this market is your
“human capital” (innate and learned skills). Market society (later
called “ownership society”) rose from the economic crisis of the 1970s,
was accelerated by Ronald Reagan, and became the dominant economic
model after the collapse of the Berlin Wall.
Now for that moment. It happens when sheriff’s deputy Fred Ross, one
of the few who have a secure job in Flint, explains why it’s hard for
some of the people he is evicting to move—there’s a shortage of
U-Haul trucks. “These people couldn’t find a truck. They called two or
three different places. They called U-Haul… and they said all their
trucks were out for today. They called Ryder truck, and they said all
of theirs were out for today. A gentleman came by, we hauled him down,
and he didn’t want to get involved. So now I assume they’re on the
phone, trying to get a trailer… from Mark’s Trailer Rental up on
Carpenter Road.”
“Why are all the trucks being rented here?” asks Moore.
“People are probably moving. With GM closing, there are so many
people leaving town… We’re having a lot of people just abandon their
houses sometimes.”
In this moment, Moore points to the fact that people are fleeing
Flint, Michigan. He even shows, in one sequence, U-Haul trucks on the
freeway, each heading to a city or place that has what Flint no longer
has—a future.
Let’s keep that moment in mind and turn to Capitalism, which
was made 20 years after Roger & Me and the fall of the
Berlin Wall. The area of time covered in the documentary is just before
and just after the crash of September 2008. What is it we see all
across America? That it has become Flint. Indeed, the American-style
capitalism that removed Flint’s economic base and industrial
production, and relocated it to poorer parts of the world has spread
its program to every corner of the country. Thousands of poor and
middle-class people are being evicted by thousands of sheriff’s
deputies.
The people in Roger & Me, however, were in a much better
situation than the people in Capitalism. The residents of Flint
could still go somewhere else, still rent a U-Haul truck and move to a
place where the job market was booming. In Capitalism, you can’t
move to a better place because everywhere else is the same as where you
are; everywhere jobs are disappearing and the poor and middle class are
being viciously dispossessed of the little that they own. There is even
a moment in Capitalism, the most important moment, when Moore
discovers that a man being evicted from his rural home received the
eviction notice from a company that’s based in Flint! The dead city is
literally turning the living into zombies. Capitalism is the
only film today that has an adequate idea of the state of things in
America. 
Your review is excellent. I love your last sentence. Thank you.
The poor and middle class still vote against their own interests.
@2 so true. primarily because so many are uneducated, and others willfully ignorant. it’s frustrating to no end.
idiots.
a movie made and sold to a company who then distributes it for profit.
the jokes on you.
Good review, Charles. I’m looking forward to MM’s return to his roots.
While I agree with Moore’s critics that sometimes his snarky editorializing can be counterproductive (please! let the facts speak for themselves and get yer fat ass out of the frame!!!) it does look like he really goes somewhere with this one.
incredible writing.
this movie is bullshit. its all information that has been spread around by numerous sources already and only serves to stroke this bloated “dude hat” wearing self important idiots ego. and I’m a liberal!!! a liberal who was betrayed by people like ralph nader going so far in trying to make himself a cultural demigod that he took money from the GOP. just to remain in the spotlight.
just like this clown. doing absolutely anything at all to remain “vital”.
i mean, have you ever seen him give interviews? i trust him about as much as i trust glenn beck. same thing, different sides. blowing “truths” up so far out of proportion that they serve only to rally anger in people unwilling to think for themselves.
charles-the crtics you mentioned didnt miss his point. they got it. and know it. and agree with it.
they, and i, simply believe his bullshit takes away from the points. and that a much more powerful documentary could have been made by him maybe just producing it. not “starring” as the pained and distraught voice of the oppressed. the dudes a multimillionare.
New Rule: You sound like an asshole if you decide to rip the movie apart if you haven’t seen it.
Please make a note of it.
Please stop writing, Charles.
@9 New Rule: You’re an idiot if you actually pay to go see a Michael Moore movie.
At least buy a ticket to something of value, like All About Steve.
@ #2,3 & 5…..I concur!! And it seems that if you mention critical thinking to many Americans they’d ask “what’s that mean?” since if it’s not on Fox News it doesn’t exist or is “unpatriotic” (gag!)
“How does an overweight man complain about the glutony of a nation?”
Or dress down and expose the corruption of health care and insurance industries (sicko).
It’s the biggest problem i have with Moore – he’s right on so many items, but the inconsistencies of his bad health (morbidly obese is bad health = very high insurance risk), and one who claims he is still a customer of one of the most vile capitalist enterprises (fast food), makes him appear. . shameless. to fully appreciate the last 2 films, moore himself has to be ignored. this is of course not possible.
@8: He doesn’t give interviews because he’s not the one answering questions, dolt. He’s the one doing the interviewing. But I’m sure that was just a poor choice of words, and you just haven’t ever seen a single one of his movies, or you’d know that he sits down to interview plenty of people.
@11: That’s right, because he’s fat, he can’t possibly be right about anything. I wonder if you realize that “fat cats” is a figurative term, not implying that overfed felines run the country…?
Also, I completely failed to notice it was Mudede that wrote this interview. Thoughtful, coherent, and cogent. Well done, Charles.
I think he’s displaying some martyrdom by indulging in all the things he feels are wrong with America. He’s putting his body and health on the line to prove a point. However, none of what I just said is true, but I’m curious would you be more inclined to believe the points he’s making? At any rate, he’s some fat-ass living proof whether he meant to or not.
While I appreciate your review I’ll just point out a little piece of irony about the paper this week. There’s a festival going on that promotes local film ecology, unlike say the capitalist behemoth of SIFF. Your coverage of said festival, while you do cover it, you do so in such an incoherent way and might I say quite differently from your coverage of the aforementioned monolith of SIFF. As a local paper, one of the few left in the country, I would have hoped that your coverage this week would have reflected the values you so often posit in your paper. Instead I find a large review of a film that has an even larger ad budget for a film that reports to be anti-capitalistic at heart. Might I suggest the paper buy locally, support a local economy and lay off the Hollywood fare for a while.
@ JF:
Sorry you misunderstood – i was agreeing with you.
not snarky.
oh wait – you weren’t talking to me.
disregard.
So let me get this straight, you have to be poor and fit to make a movie on this subject? Un-fucking believable !
Yeah, let’s discount what Michael Moore has to say because he’s overweight. Let’s ignore what he’s trying to accomplish on behalf of the working men and women of this country because he doesn’t look like something you’d see on American Idol.
Good god.
This is a great movie!
@11, @16, @17:
It’s called an “ad hominem” attack.
Not very artsy but hey, it’s a documentary. As usual gives us the rarely explored point of view on things and challenges paradigms (Weltanschauung), this time about the distribution of wealth. Undoubtedly my favorite social subject 🙂
The most important year of the last century, the most important moment, the only film today that… Man, Charles, your pronouncements make it hard to get through the rest of your writing!
“But by focusing on the antics, the hopscotching, the jokes, and on Moore himself, these critics and others have missed the real greatness of this documentary. Because I saw it, the main business of this review will be to point it out to those who didn’t.”
Clear writing! Yay, Charles!
I had no problem with the writing, not sure what some of u are after in that regard. Sorry so many of u can’t stand the truth when u see it. I love all the work Michael has done and hopefully will continue to do. After reading this I will be seeing the film tonight. Thanks all, and to sad poor and middle class people please stop voting against your self! Shit – I can leave this country anytime I want and go to a good liberitarian or socialist country like our friends and neighbors to the north!!