In Theaters: Capitalism: A Love Story

But then there's no room for self-interrogation when crooked magicians like Henry Paulson and Timothy Geithner are on the loose. Capitalism's greatest success is its dismantling of the very sketchy genesis of the federal stimulus package, which is contrasted with an old fashioned worker protest in the heartland. Describing his bafflement at the voodoo economy currently cleaving the country in two, one worker sitting in at the downsized factory crystallizes the issue perfectly: all that fancy talk about derivatives and stimulus has nothing to do with them, he says, they just want to get paid for honest work: "Here we don't make deals, we make doors and windows."

Not anymore we don't, not really. We just make money now, sometimes we make it out of thin air, with one percent of the population controlling an economy that hold the lives of the other ninety-nine in the balance -- an end point Moore suggests capitalism was bound to reach sooner or later. In the process the capitalist ethos has corrupted our social and moral fabric as well, and many of us were swindled all too easily, taking on debts and mortgages well beyond our means; even good, hard-working people made bad decisions.

For the most part Moore ignores this piece of the pie, focusing instead on corporate bogeymen. While complacency is hardly what Moore espouses, depicting 99% of the population as victims confuses the film's ultimate message of individual action and accountability. On the subway ride home from the screening Moore's message -- and his patronizing delivery -- was manifest in the recording piped through the car: as though we, as a nation, had regressed to a point of childlike cluelessness, we were strongly encouraged to forfeit our seats to the elderly, handicapped, and pregnant.

But perhaps we do need to be spoken to like an unruly kindergarten class, and reminded of the obvious, of what we used to know intuitively -- don't buy what you can't afford, stop eating when you're full, rise and fight against what is totally fucked up with your votes and your feet -- until we learn to live as a co-operative society again. What a world, I thought. What a city. "Courtesy is contagious," the calm voice went on, "and it begins with you."

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