Moore’s attack on capitalism goes beyond the financial crisis. Following his any-stick approach, he adds unrelated examples of corporate malfeasance to his indictment.
One such tale involves a for-profit juvenile-detention center in Pennsylvania whose operators allegedly bribed two judges to give kids longer sentences, thus increasing revenues to the facility. This is a despicable crime, but it
is a crime. The men involved are facing long prison sentences of their own. It might come as a shock to Moore, but political corruption predates capitalism and exists in every country on earth. Except Cuba, of course.
Near the end of the film, Moore gives us what he thinks is the ultimate illustration of the failure of capitalism: a shot of the flooded Ninth Ward after Katrina. I looked around the theater and was dismayed to see so many nodding heads. The Ninth Ward flooded because a government agency, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, despite a surfeit of funding,
failed at one of its most basic tasks: the maintenance of floodwalls around the city of New Orleans. In the real world, government was almost entirely to blame for the man-made component of the Katrina disaster. But in Moore’s universe, up is down, and capitalism is to blame for everything.
At one point Moore’s anti-capitalist fervor takes a literally holier-than-thou turn. In a bit of voice-over narration, he tells the audience that he once considered entering the priesthood because he admired the church’s commitment to helping the poor. Moore interviews several priests and bishops, some of whom share his view that capitalism is evil and none of whom think capitalism is good for poor people. At no time does anyone mention that some of the most impoverished places in the world remained that way for centuries, despite the Catholic Church’s ministry there, but have become developed countries in the last few decades by instituting free-market reforms.
Moore’s hatred of capitalism blinds him to the fact that no other economic system in the history of the world has proven as effective at reducing poverty. It does, however, guarantee a win-win for him personally. If Bush’s departure diminishes the public’s appetite for Moore’s shtick, he can blame capitalism for failing to reward his genius. If, on the other hand,
Capitalism draws big numbers to the box office, conservatives will have no choice but to meet Moore halfway: Any system that remunerates such dreck is not without its flaws.
— Stephen Spruiell is an NRO staff reporter.< Back 1 2 
