Michael Moore, Capitalism, Catholicism, Naïveté

Sunday, October 11, 2009
By Marty

Since I generally adore the work of filmmaker Michael Moore – he makes me laugh, he makes me cry, he is a huge voice in the wilderness for me and many others of the working class – this is a harsh but necessary criticism, but one that I must offer. In my criticism, I would not attribute his motives to any kind of malicious deception. Instead I am inclined to attribute them to blind bias, a benefit I give to Moore that, unfortunately, he rarely gives to the antagonists in his films.

While I have no argument with his basic premise that capitalism is a corrupt system, I have a serious problem with how he makes some of the arguments in the movie. Most notably, his ironic portrayal of the Catholic Church as one of the heroes of anti-capitalism.

Among his many biases, one of the greatest seems to be his fondness for the Catholic Church, the world’s largest, and often throughout its history, most corrupt multinational corporation. Of all religions to choose as somehow the antithesis of capitalism, Moore’s seems an odd choice. The Catholic church has made its fortunes off the backs of the middle class and the poor, though its exploitation has been the sham of selling spiritual relief as its phantom product rather than things more tangible, things that might actually contribute to the well-being of people and society. And then there is the Catholic school system, the largest propaganda and sales network ever devised. Finally, the Catholic Church has fought harder and more successfully than any large corporation against unions in their own workforce, and still does to this day.

Though there are certainly many individuals within the church, including clergy, that are sensitive to the working classes – as there are individuals in any large corporations – the Catholic Church is one of the great cogs in the history of capitalism , and indeed should be considered by Moore, if he we a little less naïve, as one of his antagonists.

I guess it will be up to someone else to make that film.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, October 11th, 2009 at 12:46 pm and is filed under Religion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

10 Responses to “Michael Moore, Capitalism, Catholicism, Naïveté”

  1. Cassandra
    October 11, 2009 at 2:47 pm

    I have yet to see the film, but from what I’ve read in Moore’s e-mails and other opinions, it does seem he is sadly naive about the Catholic Church’s capitalist connections. Thanks for calling him out on this.

    #60
  2. umbrarchist
    January 18, 2010 at 3:20 pm

    People talk about this CAPITALISM abstraction as though it is something REAL.

    Capitalism doesn’t do anything, people just use it as an excuse. Like Flip Wilson saying, “The Capitalism made me do it!”

    Capitalism doesn’t keep educators from making accounting mandatory in the schools. Double-entry accounting is 700 years old. Why shouldn’t everyone know how to do it on these cheap computers?

    Adam Smith talked about enlightened self interest and an Invisible Hand. Keeping people in the dark is not part of Adam Smith’s capitalism.

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