Capitalism: A Love Story Page #4

makes ice cream.

But the other guy,

they don't like

his ice cream that much

and they don't buy it,

so it fades out.

lt's on me.

That is a good fit.

Shawn:
The basic law of life

is that if you have things,

you can easily get more things.

Very quickly, one guy can have

five times more

than anybody else.

- Free enterprise.

- Competition.

Woman:

The profit motive.

Moore:
My dad, an assembly-line

worker at General Motors,

bought and paid for our house

before l graduated

from kindergarten.

We had a new car

every three years.

We went to New York

every other summer.

That's me on Wall Street.

And that's me

directing my first movie

at the World's Fair.

We went to Catholic schools,

we lived a good life.

lf this was capitalism,

l loved it...

and so did everyone else.

During these years

a lot of people got rich

and they had to pay

a top tax rate of 90%/%.

Yep.

But they still got to live

like Bogie and Bacall.

And what did we do

with all their money?

We built damns, bridges,

interstate highways,

schools, hospitals.

We even sent a guy to the moon.

Things seemed to be going

in the right direction.

Dad had a secure job

and Mom could work

if she wanted,

but didn't have to.

Middle-class families only needed

one income to survive.

Our union family had

free health care and free dental.

The kids could go to college

without getting a loan from a bank.

Dad had four weeks

paid vacation every summer.

Most people had

a savings account and little debt.

And Dad's pension was set aside

where no one could touch it.

lt would be there for him

when he retired.

We got all of this because

our main industrial competition

had been reduced to rubble.

Here's what the German

car industry looked like.

And here's the Japanese

auto industry.

l guess you could say

it's easy to be number one

when you have no competition.

Yes, of course

not everything was perfect.

We didn't mind having to put up

with a little bit of this

and a little bit of that...

just as long as we could be

middle-class.

And we could count on our kids

having it better than we had it.

lt sounded like

a good deal to us.

Capitalism-- no one

ever had it so good.

And then, right when

we were in the middle

of this big love affair

with capitalism...

Announcer:
The ABC

Sunday Night Movie ''The Gambler''

will continue in its entirety

following this live report

from ABC News.

We are at a turning point

in our history.

Moore:

Along came Debbie Downer.

Too many of us now

tend to worship

self-indulgence

and consumption.

Human identity

is no longer defined

by what one does,

but by what one owns.

This is not a message

of happiness or reassurance,

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