The Wolf Blitzer Capitalism Fallacy

To Michael Moore:

Let’s talk about...most people who are going to see this movie who don’t like you are going to say, "you know what, Michael Moore has done pretty well in this free-market, capitalist system—you’ve become a fairly rich guy yourself."

Moore answers:

Why am I against capitalism if I’ve done so well? Shouldn’t the question be better put—-I’m not trying to do your job for you—-but wouldn’t the question better be, "gee Mike, you’ve done so well, why don’t you just kick back at the lake and enjoy your life. Why do you care about people losing their health care and their jobs and all that...you’re not losing yours." I wonder if there was a Wolf Blitzer 200 years ago who asked Thomas Jefferson or John Adams or George Washington, "hey, you know, you guys are wealthy land owners..."

This question is the only thing the MSM hacks can come up with for Moore.

-- Presumptuous Insect

PI, I don't want to get off topic from Greenwald's post today (good work as usual, GG, on a very diverse set of topics), but I think both Blitzer AND Moore have phrased this question incorrectly.

It shouldn't be: "Mike, you've done well with capitalism, why are you knocking it," or "Wolf, yes I've made some money, does that mean I shouldn't care anymore?"

It should be "Mike, if capitalism isn't a fair way to do business, why are you distributing this movie in a capitalist way? Why not give it away, or share the profits through some sort of open co-op? If you don't like capitalism and think it's hurting the world, why are you still using it?"

People are going to be spending money on Mike's movie, that they could be using on health care or to feed their families. Thus Moore is perpetuating the capitalist system. The criticism would be true no matter what the movie is about.

There's lots of good scholarship on the value to society in giving up copyright and moving toward open distribution of content (see Cory Doctorow's distribution mechanism for Little Brother, for example, which he found was MORE successful and profitable than selling the book). As far as I know, Moore has no interest in doing that; he wants to maintain his property and profit from it. The fact that he's already made his fortune in life makes this even more baffling; I should think he really could afford to distribute his movie freely, at least as far as his personal profit is concerned. The greater exposure and moral clarity would add to the momentum of his on-film arguments. I just don't get it.

Today's column should be required reading for any journalist or blogger who covers a tea-bag event. I don't associate myself with them because, as you so astutely observed, they represent a broad mish-mash of ideas, some of which I support, some of which I tolerate, and some of which I vehemently disagree with.

Not really the sort of situation one wants to issue the blanket endorsement of one's attendance.

But I'm sick of various factions trying to oversimplify these crowds. Mainstream media inevitably represent them as straightforward GOP herds, while libertarian outfits often want to claim every participant was personally recruited by Ron Paul. All ludicrous.

You know what it's most similar to? The 2003 New York and Washington DC antiwar protests. I was at both, and boy, you had a weird mix of folks there. Antiwar libertarian types like me, pro-Palestine groups, communists (real, party communists), Move-On and Howard Dean democrats, the Pink Brigade, Mormons and Quakers, WTO black-band anarchists, you name it. All opposed to war, often for different reasons, really not sharing any significant ideology.

And once again, following those protests, the media sought to simplify. It was a bunch of America-haters. Or Bush-haters. Or pacifists. Or Democrats. All ludicrous.

Really, there was no single word I could assign to them, having seen them first hand, except "anti-war".

With the tea baggers, I think the most you can say about them is "anti-government." For some, that's "anti-Obama's government", for some it's "anti-any-government", for some it's "anti-government-health-care-for-Mexicans" and so on, but they're all united in wanting to take apart or block some aspect of some government program.

That could be reasonable, like "no more government surveillance" or debatable, like "no public option," or baldly unrealistic, like "no world government." But there's no reason not to just admit that it's a complicated movement, and your post does a lot to demystify it.

Thanks.