On Monday, Sept 28, Michael Moore spoke at George Washington University about his new film, Capitalism: A Love Story. One of the leaders of the GWU Liberty Society, Chad Swarthout (who is an active member of Students For Liberty, formerly a leader in the London School of Economics Hayek Society while studying abroad, leader in the DC Forum for Freedom, and all around great guy), managed to get up and question Michael Moore. Focusing on the fact that most of the problems with the current US economic system being a result of government intervention and excessive influences of personal preferences in government regulation, Chad got Michael Moore to admit that the U.S. is not a free market, and point out that if the government doesn’t represent the people, maybe we just shouldn’t give the government so much power.
Notice the sweet “Capitalism” shirt that he’s wearing. SFL will be offering shirts like this to student groups holding pro-liberty activist events via our new Student Protests Resources in conjunction with Bureaucrash.
The Q&A begins with this:
Chad Swarthout: “Realistically, is a system of private property, and a free market, which is capitalism, really a problem? Or is it really the fact that we’re giving too much power to government, and giving too much power to those who are working within government…?”
Michael Moore: ”Sure. See, we don’t really have a free market. We don’t have free enterprise in this country.”
And then Michael Moore turns it back to Chad:
Moore: “This democracy where I get to elect people isn’t working. What is the solution now? I ask you, senior at GW.”
Swarthout: “Take away the power of government. I mean, they don’t work for you.”
Moore: “But the government is supposed to be of by and for the people.”
Swarthout: “But you admit that it doesn’t work that way.”
Moore: “I know… laugh… But I’m trying to hang on to whatever little optimism I have left inside of me.”
Swarthout: “I have optimism for all of us in here, but I don’t have optimism for politicians.”
Watch the full video to see the entire thing. Great job Chad!
He doesn’t get it.
People do get a ‘vote’ in capitalism. But its not thru elected officials, its thru who you buy stuff from.
Also, the majority has NOT asked for public-option health care. And he doesn’t understand that just because someone want something from the government, that its right for the government to take from others to give it.
libertarians cry for limits on the will of the majority, but themselves, a minority, want to impose their particular moral-philosophical view on others. This particular view encompasses the idea that men are individualistic human beings and not responsible for society, as they rely on their own right to life and the possibility to cease their consent to a social contract.
But what if there is no option? What if, we cannot leave society? What if we are zoon politikon? What if we are not individualistic, but of the same flesh? What if, we are responsible for one another?
Then the question arises, whether government sometimes is the only means to preserve human dignity? Maybe in certain cases its inefficient way to reach a higher accumulative good by avoiding a particular groups' bad, is the only option, since doing nothing would be an attack on human nature, which is not individualistic.
You must have been a wrestler to twist that logic into a pretzel like that.
Have any of you thought of forming a new "corporatism", whereby you set you a new set of ground rules for any starting corporation, to limit their power, much in the same way as we did for limiting the power of government with the Declaration of Independence? I'm just off the cuff, but what if, when starting a company, we had a shell set up… the founder had to put in writing things like, a company pay structure…. CEO can make 40% more than the janitor… I don't know but some kind of sliding scale to limit pay by spreading it to the workers, but still rewarding the initiative. Someone out there should be able to figure this out. Have it in writing that the corporation will not use it's money to lobby for anything…. that can be done by the individual on the individual dime. There has to be some sort of basic tenets to support, what essentially grow to be the people in charge of our country right now! Take the power out of government and out of the corporation, keep it with We the People.