I’m not a huge fan of Michael Moore. Still, we would probably agree on a handful of issues and I’d love to buy him a beer and have a chat. That said, Moore’s latest film decrying the evils of capitalism does little more than betray his total ignorance of what true capitalism and a true free-market really is.
Interestingly, he has done us a bit of a service here. He has demonstrated “on-the-record” what many of us have been saying all along: Most liberals (and many neo-conservatives today, for that matter) have absolutely no idea what they are talking about when it comes to capitalism, free markets, and so forth.
The typical American today believes we currently live in (and have been living in) a capitalist, free-market society. This person also believes that we are a great democracy and depending where he lands, he either agrees or disagrees with the notion that we should spread this lovely democracy all over the planet. Many of these people believe that capitalism is the old white man’s tool to oppress the 90% and that, since capitalism has failed we must now try on socialism. And so on ad nauseum.
The short answer is that we have not seen anything approaching a true capitalistic free-market in decades, if not a century. We were designed as a republic, which is not the same thing as a democracy (survival of the biggest, strongest, loudest, richest, etc.). And while what we have today is certainly too often used by old white men (and many others) to oppress the 90%, again, what we have today is not capitalism. A large, far-reaching, over-powerful government simply cannot coexist with a proper capitalistic, free-market society. It will not work. That being the case, and given the fact that our government has been a beast since at least the early 1900’s, I’d say it’s clear that we have yet to give capitalism a chance.
Anyways, enough of that for now. If you have not yet hit play, do it now and see what Dr. Paul has to say about the Michael Moore show. Honestly, I wrote this before I even watched the video myself. I have no idea what he will touch on, or where he will go. I just felt like a little rant there. : )
