If you’re a long time reader of the site, you may know that I occasionally enjoy tracking down old educational films. If nothing else, they’re good time capsules and you know how much I love history. And, since we’re in the middle of an election year and people are tossing around all sorts of labels and claims about history, I figured why not share something from the past?
Capitalism is from 1948 and it features a group of teenagers (who apparently have their own radio talk show) sitting around and debating whether or not capitalism is a good thing or a bad thing. After spending a long amount of time debating whether or not local storekeeper Mr. Brown is a businessmen or a parasite, the teenagers (who all appear to be in their mid-20s) start their show and immediately start to visualize various adults giving their opinion on capitalism. The teenagers also remind us that “this is your forum. What is capitalism?”
Since the film is from 1948, you can probably guess that the message of this film should not be mistaken for the message of Michael Moore’s documentary of the same name.
As I watched Capitalism, I couldn’t help but wonder where those teenagers were now. I imagine that some of them are probably dead but undoubtedly, there’s a few who are still alive and they’re probably still freaking out over their grandchildren voting for Bernie Sanders.
“Why, I remember when I used to host a radio forum and me and my high school peers very politely discussed this very subject!”
“Whatever, grandpa. Have you seen my Che Guevara shirt?”
Who knows?
I just hope that Mr. Brown eventually made enough money to retire some place nice. Yes, he may have charged too much but he had the right to make a living, dammit!
