Is capitalism evil? Is it bound to pass from the scene? I thought
such questions were forever relegated to occasional seminars in a few
cloistered left academies. Now, compliments of Michael Moore and the
Great Recession, such questions are part of our national discourse.
Yet, as even many on the left would caution, shorting capitalism is a
dangerous strategy that has burned many over the last two centuries.
We can join Bill McKibben on Oct. 24 in nationwide protests over rising carbon emissions. We can cut our consumption of fossil fuels. We can use less water. We can banish plastic bags. We can install compact fluorescent light bulbs. We can compost in our backyard.
On September 17, in the midst of the publicity blitz for his
cinematic takedown of the capitalist order, Moore talked with Nation columnist Naomi Klein by phone about the film, the roots of
our economic crisis and the promise and peril of the present political
moment. To listen to a podcast of the full conversation, click here. Following
is an edited transcript of their conversation.- -The Nation
Editors
When I first met Michael Moore more than 20 years ago, he was showing a half-finished documentary
to a few dozen people in a classroom in Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was
funny and poignant and had a powerful message. He had taken a second
mortgage on his house - equipment for filmmaking was a lot more
expensive back then - and raised some money from like-minded locals for
a long-shot venture.
The following was adapted from a speech on May 2, 2009 at The Progressive’s
100th anniversary conference and originally printed in The
Progressive magazine, August 2009 issue:
The following was adapted from a speech on May 2, 2009 at The Progressive’s
100th anniversary conference and originally printed in The
Progressive magazine, August 2009 issue:
Michael Moore's new documentary comes billed as a tale of forbidden passion, charting a wild romance that flourished for decades before coming to a crashing, calamitous end in the autumn of 2007. It's title? Capitalism: A Love Story.
The debate over economic policy has taken a predictable yet ominous turn: the crisis seems to be easing, and a chorus of critics is already demanding that the Federal Reserve and the Obama administration abandon their rescue efforts. For those who know their history, it's déjà vu all over again - literally.
For this is the third time in history that a major economy has found itself in a liquidity trap, a situation in which interest-rate cuts, the conventional way to perk up the economy, have reached their limit.
On October 3rd, as the spreading economic meltdown threatened to topple
financial behemoths like American International Group (AIG) and Bank of
America and plunged global markets into freefall, the U.S. government
responded with the largest bailout
in American history. The Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008,
better known as the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), authorized
the use of $700 billion to stabilize the nation's failing financial
systems and restore the flow of credit in the economy.
Today we are caught in a global economic crash and depression, a calamity
affecting every nation connected to the global economy, especially poor nations
lacking economic reserves. But this crisis also puts into play new possibilities
for a democratic surge, perhaps toward economic democracy.
