Just capital

 

You may find his bombastic, exhibitionist style irksome, but you can hardly fault his sense of timing. Documentary maker Michael Moore began writing and researching his latest film, Capitalism: A Love Story, long before the financial meltdown sent the pillars of the global economy tumbling. And, in customary style, the maker of the award-winning Fahrenheit 9/11 and Bowling for Columbine has taken his bullhorn and a rather large bee in his bonnet to deliver the gospel according to pissed-off Middle American to the men in suits that got us here. 

When he was in Cannes recently, NOX was able to slip a few questions to the big fella, baseball cap and all, most of which revolved around the fact that, yes, he did feel entirely vindicated.

 

Michael Moore: Well, I was already coming to the conclusion that capitalism is not democratic and not moral. When the collapse happened, a third premise developed: capitalism does not work. As soon as they lost their own money – actually, lost our money – they wanted a government bail out, they wanted welfare. They wanted socialism for themselves, proving that their way does not work and that you need the state and the government as a safety net.

 

MM: I think psychologically 9/11 in 2001 was a real shock to the system. We’ve never really fought a war on our land, not since 1812 when the British tried to take it back. But on September 15th, 2008, people realised that they are no longer in control of their own government. They realised that the rich – the upper one per cent, corporations and Wall Street – really call the shots. That was a bitter pill to swallow.

 

MM: No. It’s too late. It’s seriously gone too far. We need to rethink how we structure ourselves economically, and think about doing it in a democratic way where the people have a say in how the economy is run. The beast, capitalism, is so out of control at this point that there is no amount of rope you can tie around it that’s going to contain it.

 

MM: The film did name names. It shows what was going on behind the scenes: Goldman Sachs was very much involved, how they made a killing, and how the Democrats helped the Republicans do this. I think when people see the movie they will understand a lot better, and they will be very upset. As they should be.