资本主义：一个爱情故事

我想我在精神上某处应该是上升了一个层次，如果我开始为了记录片而不是剧情片流眼泪的话。

只是，作为一个不跟经济专业沾边的局外人，一个流离在美国的异乡人，为了被腐蚀的美国梦大放悲歌，难免有些自作多情。我怀着这样又激动又惭愧的情绪无处抒发，因为我知道，无论是已看过的还是将要看的，说它好还是说它坏的，很少再会有人跟我有一样的感触了。

五星给Michigan。

影片一开始，他说我生在Flint, Michigan, GM的总部所在地。这个时候我身在Dearborn, Michigan, Ford的总部所在地。我在这里三年了，三年间我无数次地听人说，不要去东边的底特律啊，那是美国最乱的一个城市；也不要去北边的Flint啊，那是美国第二乱的城市。我们是异乡人嘛，听到这些话的时候只需要乖乖地做出惊恐的表情，而不用体会他们背后的悲凉。我也无数次听人说，以前这里如何是美国的工业重镇、经济支柱，福特大楼如何风光，底特律大街上人潮熙攘。异乡人，我们同样只需要叹息一声“来的不是时候”，所有属于他们的悲哀、痛惜就由他们去吧。

可是影片里的michigan看得我心痛了。那些废弃的工地，破旧的遗址，那些被赶出家门的大胖子工人看得我心痛了。我从来不知道长成一个大胖子，笨重地搬着家具，放火烧掉，然后低低地骂着人，有这样让人心痛的力量。

给Michael Moore。

都说他是主观的纪录片导演。可我热爱他固执的主观。啊，他也是一个大胖子，在美国随处可见的那一种，拥有撼动人心的力量。我喜欢他的叙事方式，怎么严肃也遮掩不住的幽默，对经典轻轻的致敬和重重的玩弄。至于他身上那些刺眼的永恒存在的激进，大抵是真的勇士才能做得出的。作为旁白的声音也很好听，胖子都有好听的声音。

在底特律中心的大楼下，他被警卫拦住，他说我是Michael Moore，我拍了这么多年的电影还从来没有说我哪里不能进；他拖着他肥胖的身躯在华尔街拉上犯罪现场的拦幅，拿着大喇叭喊你们都是罪犯。我不禁在想中国的名导们都在做什么。嗯我听说了，他们在拍纯爱文艺片和所谓灾难伦理片。意义在哪里？力量在哪里？我们不需要更多温情了啊。

给Blockbuster。

有一件伤心的巧事。我家电影一直是在Blockbuster租的，这部也不例外。我租下这部不久，就突然有人告诉我Blockbuster，美国最大最老资格的影片出租公司，申请破产保护了。我对破产的Lehman Brothers没有过什么感情，对GM也没有太多感情。在金融危机这么久以后，Blockbuster成了我最不忍卒读的一个。我常去那里租电影，因为他们有很多家门店遍布周围，更因为他们有异常热心的店员，总是忙不迭地过来跟我们介绍电影，比冷冰冰的寄来寄去的Netflix好很多。遇到的每一个人都看起来那么乐观，那么健谈，啊，还有，喜欢Denzel Washington和Leonardo DiCaprio，每个人都是。我总想，他们是因为经常看电影才这么心情舒畅呢，还是心情足够舒畅了才被招来做店员？

这件事情以后，我似乎不敢再去那里了。我怕看到任何忧伤的面孔，或是紧闭的门，或是不再出现的人。我只有把看过的电影默默寄回去，再等着下一部默默寄来。

给所有拒绝留下又不要离开的人。

影片最后他说，I refuse to live in a country like this - and I'm not leaving. 我不要在这样一个国家生活，可我不会离开的。拒绝留下又不要离开，这是每个深爱这片土地的人的困境。我看到更多更多的人，愤怒着，叫嚣着，辱骂着，却更安心地留着。

给你们。

The other day I was watching Real Time. As usual, Bill and his panel - Arianna Huffington and Andrew Sorkin in this case - talked about how the Corporate America, especially those financial elites, rip off the hard-working middle class people and get away with it with tons of taxpayers' money in their pockets. As the heat mounted, it is, of course, inevitable to raise doubts about and criticize the existing system. Then, all of sudden, I was shocked, and partly amused, by how these spouts resemble what we have been preached throughout our education. Greed, exploitation, and ultimately the populist revolt. This type of rhetoric sounds no strange to us; for this is what we are expected, if not ordered, to believe in. And yet, to the American people, particularly the younger generation, it sounds just as exotic and remote as a fashionable historic curiosity.

There are more of these moments to find in Michael Moore's documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story. Jimmy Carter's presidential statement that "we are at a turning point in our history" in that "human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns" called for the very same thing the Eight Honors and Eight Disgraces is intended to. The only difference here is that one has perished amid the laissez faire spree triggered by the president's successor, while another is ongoing in an emerging superpower experiencing an astounding economic growth and faced with increasingly polarized distribution.

Carter also rightly decried that "too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption". Ironically enough, this is exactly where Ronald Reagan thrived. By cutting taxes by a enormous margin, by packing those ideas that Carter hated and warned against into the doctrine of capitalism and the almighty power of the free market, the Republican president created a robust consumption-driven economy and garnered tremendous popularity. Historically, this was also a significant period of what Walter R. Mead, an advisor to Henry Kissinger, described as the breakdown of the blue model. Union power declined, competition intensified - just as Michael Moore lamented in the film, it was not an easy time for everybody. However, the cosmetic served well. With new policies well implemented, economic index responded with great numbers. So did the stock market, so did the financial sector; and so people say of the economy and the president's legacy. Indeed, it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

But this does not solve the moral problems incurred by the ever greater gap between the wealthy and the poor. In an electoral democracy, for a policy, or more precisely -- an ideology to become legitimate it has to promote the core ideas that have been deeply rooted in this nation ever since its foundation - well known as the "American dream" - which, in its simplest form, requires two most basic elements: freedom and equal opportunities. Of course, it is no difficulty to claim freedom in a capitalism for it is already a "free market", but the concept of "equal opportunities" is not an easy case. How could everyone be equal in a system in which more capital could be gained out of capital itself? How is deregulation supposed to promote equality when the ones with more wealth is granted with access to more influence, and hence even more wealth? This is where the economists, along with their terrifying-sounding jargons, weighed in. Drawing on one after another premises that are too good - and too simple - to be true, they derived elegant models functioning perfectly in equilibriums yet inherently inconsistent with reality. But politicians, as they always do, conveniently neglected those flaws in nature and with the help of speechwriters blended the pretty conclusions into their exciting orations. The "invisible hand", what a tempting yet handy idea - it's like finding the key to the ultimate mystery of the universe - sparing us the tedious thoughts of how our society and economy really work, develop, and interact with fast changing circumstances. Capitalism and the free market, as the Cold War ended in the collapse of the Soviet Union, soon earned their unchallengeable status in the realm of economic expertise. This, I firmly believe, is the ugly but real side of the truth: people blindly come to believe in those slogan-like theories not because of prudence, but because of laziness; for it is the one of the most common human nature of us to see what we want to see.

But, how about the immoral and unchristlike worship of "self-indulgence and consumption"? It indeed sounds like a righteous warning, doesn't it? Let me put this in relatively vague words for the sake of a bit wit here. When people see and hear of the media promotions of smoking elaborately plotted and sponsored by big evil tobacco companies, as depicted in Hollywood products, in either an upbraiding or a nostalgic way, they easily buy it, assuming that's what surely is bound to happen, as though the condescending liberal media elites just reclaimed their integrity out of blue. Nonetheless, contradictory to the common ground that government and politicians are evil, hypocritical, or, at best, incompetent, when it comes to massive political propaganda people easily get dismissive, disdainfully calling them conspiracies. Anyway, were those speculations to have been true, you have got to give applause to the gentlemen behind the curtain, for they can somehow manage to manipulate people to do and believe in things that are obviously against their own interests. It is truly a tour de force, works like magic.

Back to the film, and the ideology talk partly thanks to its title. It is amazing how frequently and strongly Michael Moore stress the term "socialism". And not in a Cold-War-minded way, but in a progressive and advocating way. So advocating that it proclaims socialism is the unfulfilled dream of FDR. So, how does the landscape really looks like in the US? Is it as biased as either side insists? Trying to answer that question, another popular liberal president, Jed Bartlet, would probably say, "Give me numbers." Fair enough. Let's take a look at them:

http://filer.blogbus.com/4598556/45985561268749559s.gif
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This poll was conducted earlier this year. It shows that, significantly, though 58% of Americans still maintain a negative image of socialism, among Democrats and leaner a majority of people share a positive one, and that majority grows even bigger when it comes to liberals, topping the "supermajority" threshold at 61%.

Also underlined in the film is Barack Obama's ascendency in polls during the '08 presidential election, which Michael Moore arbitrarily attributed to the underlying socialism in his rhetoric and agenda. It is easy to commit the mistake of post hoc ergo propter hoc, but the exhilarated crowd was real and hard. Young people, with their compassion and idealism yet to fade, are known to be the main components of the liberal base. This hypothetical electoral map below demonstrates that fact convincingly well:

http://filer.blogbus.com/4598556/45985561268757624r.jpg

These results altogether illustrate a sharp contrast with that across the Pacific, where the pro-capitalism outrage amid the young is burgeoning seemingly as fast as the economic growth. The bottom line is that it is widely acknowledged that China's economy and growth model are in fact ill and flawed, but is capitalism the solution to all our conundrums? I am too often astounded by the extend to which some of our professors and pundits, who are supposed to think and analyze in a much more comprehensive way, appear so naive as to blame many problems on the markets not being open, free, and in essence capitalist enough. The contemporary history of the US has already showed the idealistic promises of capitalism that everyone shares an equal opportunity to work his way into the upper class are nothing but a fantasy; in reality, it is never in its purest form but other derivatives, namely, crony capitalism. Which does little good to the society as a whole but quite the opposite, creating even more inequality in the long run. In an economy that is strong and hence resilient to tentative turbulences so long as the marginal well-being stays positive, it might take decades for a bubble to burst. Nevertheless, in an over populated nation governed by a young regime dealing with various inherent social tensions, it could lead to catastrophe.

So, what does all this imply? Should we just entirely reject the Western philosophies as merely historical blunders? Of course not. To me the very point here is that we are bestowed - in an ironic way - with this dual perspective on the nature of human society, in terms of how social progressivism driven by different values eventually converge at promoting human equality and how dogmatism could be manipulated to impede that momentum and ultimately undermine our integrity. For a nation in the face of a seemingly unstainable economy, for a people shadowed by a wobbling ethical system, this is an utterly important issue.

看看那个电影中罗斯福说的话，那些嘲笑摩尔的人根本没看懂的是什么？！可耻！！
摩尔是真正的诗人，真正的艺术家。
我现在理解那些浴血奋战的2战美国士兵的精神动力了，他们保卫的是用国家军队保卫他们对抗保护资本家的警察和打手的美国！

Michael Moore还是麦氏的风格。看过片子，上豆瓣看了看评论，发言者寥寥，好在评分不错。

相比三枪和花木兰这样的片子，这部片子很难触动豆油们的萌点。毕竟来豆瓣论左右，哇，太意识形态，也太不 douban-stylish 了。

有人说，这是美国人的事情，老美觉醒了。有人说，靠，摩尔又在拍这种“伪纪录片”了，太意识形态。还有人干脆直接攻击说，哼，就是一左派嘛！没人爱看老愤青，好在是美国的；没人喜欢偏激，好在我们都知道摩尔拍的是“伪纪录片”。

我不知道讨论一种名为“资本主义”的社会建构和价值体系，有什么客观的方式？也不知道，在如今的中国，左派已经变成什么又丑又土又愚蠢的“妖魔”。好歹这里还有一个人敢于在美国这个谈社会主义色变的话语氛围中批评并探讨另一种可能性，好歹这是一个真的值得更多人去关注和探讨的“未来该如何”的真问题。

老麦知道，资本主义作为一种经济制度与民主作为一种政治制度与程序规范不是一码事儿，甚至美国和资本主义也曾经不是一码事儿。意识形态中无所不能的自由市场经济在今天的世界早已名存实亡。

但在中国，曾经是另一种更美好社会试验田的土地，很多人已经不知道这个常识了。所以，我们都相信，今日的美国是我们的better Golden day。

老麦是不太可能超出美国思维了，所以他能找到的正面例子是欧洲和日本，反面例子是苏联和mao中国。

正如，我们也不太能超出我们的中国思维一样，所以我们能找到的正面例子是美国，而反面例子，呃，大概就是还不够“美国”的中国吧！

想起一句话戴锦华老师的一句话，没有一笔历史遗产不是债务，也没有一部历史债务不是遗产。在历史的债务与遗产面前，我们不怕伪纪录片，怕的是连问题都不再能触达的虚无。

ps 有时候豆瓣很烦，很娘娘腔

这片子跟华氏911一比，差了不止3条街。缺了阴谋论，看上去就很乏味，以至于后半段简直令人昏昏欲睡。对资本主义的血泪控诉，就这点桥段，都不好意思写进我国的政治教材啊（话说按今天的眼光看，80年代的中学政治教科书很像另类科幻，什么牛奶倒大海，什么证交所多过米店，竟然都一一应验了）。说实话，我真的很想推荐老麦看一看我国80年代的中学政治教科书，虽然分析我国的事情不怎么靠谱，但是找资本主义的茬，那还是相当地一针见血啊。

其实华尔街，多好的阴谋论题材啊，但看到老麦对函数的导数满头黑线，就知道这不是他可以驾驭的了（不如请宋鸿兵来当顾问）？于是剩下的就只有感情宣泄了；美国本来是很好的，都是布什/鲍尔森良心让狗吃了，只要信天主信民主（党）以及巴马，于是乎就万事大吉了。红脖子智商固然低，但也没有这么好忽悠的吧。而且话说巴马上台已经两年了，那下次再怎么拍呢？看情形是要搞”党内出了佩洛西这样的走资派“之类的桥段了。

既然对问题没有深入的分析，老麦开出的药方也是可笑的。”罗斯福多活几年就好了“，算是解决方案？要知道罗斯福的social security现在都快破产了唉。人人有工作，人人有房子住，人人有医疗，哪个不需要花钱的啊？当然罗斯福有可能办得到，您老自己在开头就说了，那是因为欧洲日本都被还原成2D了嘛。

说老实话，搞福利国家北欧可以，日本可以，但是美国不可以，因为美国是老大，天塌下来也只能硬顶着，养懒人的下场就是老大地位不保，这个是一点办法都没有的事情。

喂喂，最后摇滚版的ED是虾米意思啊？欺负美宣部的同志们没有听过国际歌是吧？伟大导师教导我们，革命不是请客吃饭，自发的，盲目的，没有xx党领导的，那个啥啥啥，终归是要失败的。哼着小曲就想改天换日，那是门也没有的。现如今只有我国纪念的51劳动节和38妇女节，想当初都是芝加哥工人的滚滚人头啊。