Capitalism A Love Story
“Banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies.” So wrote Thomas Jefferson to a friend in 1816. [Time]
Lillie and I drove to Las Vegas yesterday to see Michael Moore’s Capitalism-A Love Story. It was good, glad we saw it. I learned things I didn’t know about that astounded me.
For example, there was a segment of the movie about corporations buying million dollar life insurance policies on the lives of some of their employees without their knowledge. When those employees died, from cancer for example, the corporation, the beneficiary of the insurance, collected the payoff chalking it all up to another source of profit. One widow of a husband who worked at a bank in Texas related the tale of one such case. Of course the widow had no idea the bank reaped a profit from the death of her husband. Of course she received nothing from the bank.
Come to find out lots of corporations are doing that, including Bank of America and Wal-Mart. One family told of the death of their mother who worked at Wal-Mart, died, and Wal-Mart collected the money. The family, like the widow, received anything from Wal-Mart.
No one seems to know how widespread the practice is, but it was clear that hundreds of corporations do it. It was mentioned they prefer to insure younger women because they they profit more from them apparently because they have a higher rate of death, than men. It is called “Dead Peasants” insurance loophole by which a corporation can take out policies on their rank-and-file workers and, when they die, reap millions in tax-free payouts.”
Moore’s new movie covers a lot of ground. It is all about “greed and chicanery on Wall Street, Washington, D.C., and through the entire economic apparatus,” said Time Magazine. “This is Moore’s magnum opus: the grandest statement of his career-long belief that big business is screwing the hard-working little guy while government connives in the atrocity.”
Moore tells of two Pennsylvania judges who shut down a state-run detention center and sentenced children, some for the most minor of infractions, to a facility run by a private company that kicked back millions to the judges. Raw greed. Anything for a buck.
The anecdotes are instructive and appalling; and if they meander off the immediate talking point of the trillions the banks took in bailout money last year and the billions they made in profits this year, they bolster Moore’s belief that no one should have been surprised by the collapse of a corrupt system, and the ingenuity with which the big-money boys land on their feet while stepping on ours. He must also have thought that many in his audience would be familiar with the shuttle of heavy hitters between Goldman Sachs and recent Administrations, Republican and Democratic. Moore does summon University of Missouri professor Bill Black, author of the 2005 book The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One, to describe Robert Rubin, Henry Paulsen, Lawrence Summers, Timothy Geithner and others as “powerful lobbyists from the inside, and we paid their salaries.” [Time]
His movie has gotten good reviews: Bloomberg called it “Scathing, Effective and Hilarious.” The New York Times said “Moving Beyond Words.” Rolling Stone: “Fireball of a Movie Could Change Your Life.”
The impact of Capitalism, Moore points out, is that 95% of our nation’s wealth is controlled by 1% of our population. The middle class is non-existent. We are a society of the haves and the have-nots; aristocrats and peasants. Rich and poor. Moore’s movie is about how it has all come to that.
Capitalism needs to have analytical scrutiny applied to it as an economic system and a more equitable economic system replace it. He, not being an economist, characterizes his idea of a new economic system as some sort of economic Democracy. He portrayed one company as an example. Everyone working in the company own it in equal shares and equally divide the profits of the company. Not really a bad idea.
Anyway, I do recommend the movie. It is well worth your while to see and think about, whether you are liberal or conservative, it will provide some substantive food for thought.
Related posts:
8 comments
Jack, I bet investment/financial institutions everywhere do the same thing as Bank of America and Wal*Mart when it comes to selling insurance. It seems all of the investment institutions I’ve dealt with want to sell me some sort of life insurance. However, I always have had the privilege of naming my own beneficiary and would know about the insurance policy. Too bad Harold didn’t know the best way to rob a bank is to own one. Had to throw that in after reading your Michael Moore segment. By the way, I used the same method to go to your blog as usual. Take care and God bless.
I was proud of the people that are in the House and Senate
that stood up and spoke the truth. I’m proud of the workers that wouldn’t leave the factory, the neighbors that supported the family that lost their home.
I want to start a boycott of Walmart and ask that they share the million + insurance that they made when an employee died and they collected on a death insurance policy while his widow and 2 children lost their father. The husband that lost his wife and his children lost their mother
but Walmart made out like a bandit, boy, that must make the employee’s feel real good about the way Walmart exploits them. I want to support these people, What can we do, can we picket, sign petition sheets asking Walmart to donate a fair share to these families that have lost a loved one, how do these young children feel about the company that their parents worked for and getting rich on the dead peasants, I can’t comprehend that. Let them all share the insurance money with the families that lost their loved ones. I, for one won’t shop there again until they do something decent for the families they exploited. This is a disgrace, it is a pitiful commentary of what they think of the employee’s they call family.
Thank you Michael for having the courage to bring these things to our attention, it gives me strength and I want to help get this country back to where, we the people are treated equal, a country for the people by the people.
Your next film I hope will be about the change that was brought about by the people that saw your film and have band together to bring about change, that would be a Love Story for sure.
All the best.
Thank you Marge for the comment. Frankly, I was somewhat shocked when I saw that segment of the Capitalism: A Love Story. I had never heard of nor thought of companies buying life insurance on the lives of their employees then cashing in on the policies when the employee dies. I don’t hold corporations in very high regard to begin with, but such things as that really sours me. It should be made illegal. Doesn’t speak well for our capitalistic society either.
I agree with you Marion. I admire Michael Moore and his guts in bring stuff like this to light. Sure doesn’t speak well for the economic system of capitalism. Your thought of boycotting Wal-Mart is a good one. There is a long list of corporations doing it, according to the movie. I intend to see if I can find the full list and publish the list asking people to boycott all corporations that do such a thing. Money and profits is one thing, but exploiting people in this manner is atrocious. And we’re supposed to be a Christian nation!
At some point in time maybe the word capitalist will have a very negative connotation like the capitalists have managed to give to the words communists and socialists. Whenever the divide between rich and poor becomes too great revolution is the result. Capitalists owe it to their own survival to share. Instead they say, “Let them eat cake,” and end up running around looking for their heads.
You may well be right Frank. The French revolution was all about oppression by the aristocracy of the French peasants. Greed is a powerful motivator.
My wife and I saw Capitalism Monday, along with a friend, and we all felt it was Moore’s best film so far. I was also appalled by the “Dead Peasant” insurance, which I had not heard of before. I suspect it must have developed from the idea of “Key Employee” insurance, often used by small entrepreneurial corporations to allow time to replace key people who died.
If you didn’t stay for the credits you missed hearing Woody Guthrie’s song, Jesus Christ, which fits very well with the message of the movie. You can hear it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDS00Pnhkqk
I have been thinking about our economic system for a long time, and have difficulty formulating a way to improve things. One thing that capitalism does well is to provide a mechanism for rewarding deferred consumption, which is a vital function. Without it there would be little or no incentive to invest time and money in specialized training or education, planting orchards or even annual crops, research to find new medical treatments, etc. So, at the individual proprietorship level, capitalism works pretty well. I have concluded that corporations are the real source of the increasingly lopsided distribution of wealth and income — if true, we should be rebelling against corporatism instead of capitalism. Part of the problem we have with corporations is that they are essentially immortal citizens, having been granted the rights of citizens in the U.S. in a Supreme Court decision more than 100 years ago. No wonder they can concentrate wealth so well! They have replaced the aristocracy because they have a multi-generational time horizon. Bottom line: we have become a fascist country, where the corporations have almost total control of our government.
Hi Dewayne. I also thought Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story was one of his best. I had not heard of the “Dead Peasant” insurance phenomenon before either. I found it appalling as well.
Economic systems are over my head. Each such system seems to have pros and cons. The Corporate control of our government has been rather obvious for some time now. Pressure on corporations by Wall Street for continued increasing of profits has been highlighted by Wendell Potter during the current health care reform struggle.
The centralization of wealth in the hands of very few, 1% of the population has more wealth than 95%, pointed out by Moore, is a prime reason, it seems to me, for most, if not all, the economic distress we are enduring currently. It always makes me think of the French Revolution of the peasants against their aristocracy.
I don’t know how all this is going to finally shake out but something will give way ultimately. But not in my lifetime.
Leave a Comment