Saturday, December 19, 2009

Capitalism: Through Michael Moore's lens

I have never seen any of the other MM movies, though i wonder why now. A friend introduced me to him a few yrs ago through his own blog. and i remember reading up about him back then, and resolving to see some of his movies. and then forgot :P


its a very biased movie, which says capitalism has done absolutely no good to this world whatsoever. agreed that in a movie one needs to exaggerate to get his point across, but a documentary i would suppose would need to b more factual and balanced than opinionated, and that too to this extent.

it is undeniable that the world is in this rut today thanks to pure unadulterated greed; and yet greed is not an outcome of capitalism; its the other way round. if it wasn't so, socialism would not have failed the way it did almost everywhere in the world. good or bad the fact remains that capitalism is the only system that has continued to work, the others, socialism, monarchy, communism have failed miserably.

in fact, a closer look at the movie itself carefully, the reason capitalism has become what is has today, it because it has started mimicking the monarchy / aristocracy system.

having said this, some of the facts shown in the movie were shocking, to say the least. especially the official memo leaked out by an employee said such things, that i was revolted by the idea of ever joining a bank. the details and facts overall were pretty rattling, even to the dedicated finance people who i watched it with, who themselves wondered if they wanted to join banks ever [ of course their confusion lasted only 5 min] but the truth remains, that this entire industry has become too infested with greed to be curable. It needs to be replaced completely,. with what i don't know

the big constant question on my mind is will we as a generation be ever able to avoid falling prey to this corporate greed after entering this world and doing all sorts of unethical things that we now so blatantly accuse others of having done.

keeping in mind the simple perspective, that this "organisational decay" starts with an increasing sense of entitlement by employees towards company's profits / earnings/ resources; the most basic examples of which are:

1. using personal internet in office hours because we think we spend so much time in office its okay to check personal emails or do some personal work;

2. bumping up our CVs with things we haven't actually done

3. Using office expense reimbursements for claiming personal bills

4. bankers justifying first class travel because "they work so hard"

and so on.

my idea is not to become too idealistic to be practical but keeping these patterns in mind...and knowing that this sense of entitlement grows with age, time and designation; i don't know if we will or even if we can, somehow, strike a balance; and escape going downhill completely.

Here's more about the movie though: http://www.capitalismalovestory.com/

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