Jeff Koterba’s editorial cartoon in the October 2, 2009 edition of the Omaha World Herald, inspired by the release date of Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Lover Story, showed a drawing of Moore. The drawing showed Moore with a camera on his shoulder and large amounts of money overflowing from his clothing. The bubble above Moore’s head had him saying "Capitalism is evil." The caption below the drawing said, "Said the multimillionaire filmmaker."

So, is capitalism evil? Is Moore a hypocrite who says people shouldn’t make large amounts of money and then makes tons of money?

Sorry, Jeff, but I think you missed the mark this time.

I’ve caught snippets of Moore on the pre-release publicity trail the last couple of weeks (how could you avoid it?) I noted Tavis Smiley, in particular, asked the question of Moore, "Do you think there’s something wrong with making money?"

Moore’s reply every time (I paraphrase here) is he has no problem with anyone making money (nor do I). The difficulty is in the evolution of the practice of capitalism. It used to be people made money because they invented something or provided some sort of service benefiting a large number of people. Money flowed to the inventor or service provider in recognition of the value they provided through their invention or service. In Moore’s case, he has provided insights and information benefiting a large number of people.

Unfortunately, our system has morphed into an emphasis, maybe even a dependence on making money through arbitrage, i.e. the buying and selling of money itself.

Ask yourself this. If our capitalistic system is working in a fair and equitable way, then why did so many of us lose so much value in our investments last year? Why are we in the worst recession since the Great Depression? Why is over 50% of the nation’s wealth concentrated in the hands of 10% of the population? Why are so many either unemployed or looking for meaningful work?

In other words, based on what I’ve heard from Moore from his pre-release interviews, I don’t think his message will be capitalism is evil. More likely his message is capitalism’s rules need to be refined to avoid the excesses greed can create.

Maybe before you dismiss Moore’s message out of hand, you should go listen to the message for yourself and not rely on a cartoonist for the Cliff Notes summary. You might find the answers to the questions I just asked—and what to do about it.

One of my regular readers, knowing the difficulties of getting petitions on the ballot and approved, proposed an alternative. He recommended writing a letter to all his elected Congressional representatives and telling them they had better take action on a certain proposal or he intended to vote against all incumbents. Surely this simple and effective method would work if enough people could be convinced to send such a letter.

I thought his idea was a sincere one and deserved thorough discussion in hopes of generating more discussion and understanding.

Indeed, on most normal issues, if an elected official gets a lot of mail advocating a certain position, then the official is likely to support the position advocated. Unfortunately, some issues are not normal. What if the nature of the issue results in the representatives getting an equal amount of letters saying if a proposal is voted for or against, then the writer will vote against the incumbent representative? How does the representative make a decision?

Let’s look at the representatives’ likely considerations.

First, are the letters (as described by Ryan Sager in a NY Times essay) grass roots or Astroturf? In other words, are the letters written as a reaction by independent voters sincerely concerned about the proposal? Or, are the letters written by organized groups with a point of view benefiting the group, but not necessarily the population as a whole?

How the representative classifies the letter is likely based on two factors. One factor is the individual representative’s view of the role of government. A second factor is the individual representative’s view of their role as a representative.

Speaking of the first factor, does the representative . . .

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