After a good five minutes of goofy cartoon antics, the Shoemaker eventually pops the question:
“But I want to stay in business. How can I do it?” Whereupon the helpful elf gives him an earful of free-market know-how.
Were this cartoon made today, I fear the answer would be “give a few hundred thousand dollars to Barack Obama in the form of ‘campaign donations’ that don’t trigger the reporting requirement, don’t give your executives bonuses that are ‘too big’, and for heaven’s sake, DON’T GO TO VEGAS!”
Although this piece is very informative, I noticed that it lacks the entertainment quality of the classic propaganda from the 40’s & 50’s. No offense, but if they’re going to make these videos, they should hire a trained actor with a deep, rich, authoritative voice.
You know… like Barack Obama.
Interestingly, at the end of this video, they plug the novel “Atlas Shrugged”, which more and more people are talking about, but nobody really wants to read once they find out that it’s 1200 pages long. That’s a BIG time investment.
If you’re wondering whether it’s worth it, try reading one of the “good parts” – Francisco’s “Money Speech”. If you enjoy reading this, chances are you’ll enjoy the rest of the novel, too.
Here’s a 250-word excerpt, courtesy of Capitalism Magazine. The whole 2500 word speech can be found there.
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“So you think that money is the root of all evil?” said Francisco d’Anconia. “Have you ever asked what is the root of money? Money is a tool of exchange, which can’t exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?
“When you accept money in payment for your effort, you do so only on the conviction that you will exchange it for the product of the effort of others. It is not the moochers or the looters who give value to money. Not an ocean of tears not all the guns in the world can transform those pieces of paper in your wallet into the bread you will need to survive tomorrow. Those pieces of paper, which should have been gold, are a token of honor–your claim upon the energy of the men who produce. Your wallet is your statement of hope that somewhere in the world around you there are men who will not default on that moral principle which is the root of money, Is this what you consider evil?”
From 1975, proof that at one time, not all hippies completely hated America. This funky little number was paid for by the government and animated by Vincent Collins, who is still alive and well and living in San Francisco and going by “Vince” these days. Most internet sources refer to it as 200, but at 2:46, it’s clearly titled “BI CENTENNIAL”
The music is chipper & upbeat, the images are all positive and patriotic. My only complaint is the stupid peace sign on the flag.
It was weird to watch, because I kept waiting for Mount Rushmore to morph into a 3-headed Hitler who sends his eagle-morphing-into-a-vulture flying into the ghetto to devour screaming, helpless minorities or something.
Never happened.
It’s all good. Right down to the cornucopia spewing out cars, hamburgers, TV’s, hot dogs & baseballs.
This one isn’t so much about praising the virtues of capitalism as it is a cautionary tale about having loose lips when your country’s at war. And while watching it, I couldn’t help thinking about Obama.
That One had no problem releasing memos on our interrogation techniques, and the left supported him, as they pooh-poohed it all as being “harmless” and chattering about “the American public has a right to know”.
Problem is, these folks forget all too easily that “the American public” aren’t the only ones paying attention. And maybe one piece of information won’t kill our troops en masse, but bits and pieces get added up. Why make our enemy’s job easier?
And for folks like you & me, well… if you’re in a public waiting room and there’s a swarthy-looking man in his 20’s or 30’s of Middle-Eastern descent sitting nearby, maybe it wouldn’t hurt to restrict your topic of conversation with your companions to the weather for a while.
While addressing the question “what is Capitalism?, these kids never reach today’s “obvious” conclusion that it’s a system for cheating the poor, exploiting indigenous peoples, and oppressing minorities.
Which, if you read some of the reviews at the first link, is this production’s major flaw.
But the question isn’t “who is unhappy under Capitalism?”, it’s “what IS Capitalism?”. This film is a good example of using a simple, concrete situation to give meaning to more abstract terms. It’s how learning is done properly – leftist pap like “there are no rights or wrongs, just arguments for and against” notwithstanding.
Sure, these happy, healthy, well-groomed children argue over Captalism like they’re arguing over “what is Christmas?”.
“It’s presents!”
“It’s a tree!”
“It’s cookies!”
“It’s family!”
“It’s pretty colored lights!”
“It’s a month of Christmas specials on TV every night!”
But they should discuss it like that, because under Capitalism, EVERY day is Christmas.
Just ask anyone who’s come to America from a place that didn’t have it.
It blows my mind that this video had to me made. There is nothing in here but the safest, most uncontroversial catch-phrases and buzz-words, like :
Constitution; Declaration of Independence; Emancipation Proclamation; community; American Dream Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; honor; responsibility; great adventure; our way of life; creativity; ingenuity; work ethic; civility; mutual respect; unity; tolerance; open debate; civil discourse; freedom of thought, expression, and worship; values
This should be a yawner. A no-brainer. Completely and utterly unremarkable.
But it’s not that kind of world.
To paraphrase Nathan Jessep, “Fox News uses these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. The rest of the news media uses them as a punch line.”
Ideally, ANY news organization – hell, any organization period – should be able to say EXACTLY what Fox Nation said without a second thought, a sense of embarrassment, or the need to use a tone of sneering irony.
But it’s not that kind of world.
We live in the kind of world where an unabashedly American statement like this makes Fox Nation look like some sort of ultra-triple-mythical beast from an alternate universe where the laws of physics and mathematics don’t apply. Fox Nation is a vamwericorn (half vampire, half werewolf, half unicorn), and it’s existence is grotesque and incomprehensible to the liberal media elite and their sycophantic toadies in government and academia.
I don’t know much about this one except that it was done by a student (probably college) for some class, somewhere around 2008. I offer “Communism is Your Friend, Jimmy!”:
It vaguely parodies the style of the 50’s Coronet Films, however, it doesn’t parody their message. The production values and acting are low-budget, film-school-awful, yet I found the dialogue reminiscent of something that I imagine a very young Frank J. might have attempted after one too many martinis persuaded him that it was a really cool idea.
If nothing else, I found it amusing, and I especially liked the line, “Well, Jimmy, after a long hard day of working for the good of the people, I’m very tired. Now the last thing I want to do when I come home is think for myself. If we had a totalitarian, communist government, I wouldn’t have to!”
Lower your expectations a bit & give it a shot. I hope you’ll be pleasantly surprised.
Notice how they talk about how America produces disproportionate wealth for it’s population instead of the lefty talking point of using a disproportionate share of “the world’s resources”.
Also notice how the movie visually demonstrates that a fundamental belief in God is the ultimate foundation of our nation’s greatness. If you show this to a liberal, wear a raincoat in case his head explodes.
Funny thing is, as an atheist, you’d think I’d be offended by that part, but I’d have to be an amazing sort of fool to ignore the historical fact that the vast majority of people who founded this country (and the ones who continue to keep it functioning to this very day) believed in God. Regardless of my personal choices, that’s a tough one to chalk up to mere coincidence.
There’s no denying that a belief in God provides the high-octane spiritual fuel needed to keep good Americans running smooth day after hard-working day.
Proving that the decade wasn’t a total disaster, a little something that older Gen X’ers & younger Boomers might remember from Saturday mornings in the 70’s – an episode of the Schoolhouse Rock series from 1976 called “Elbow Room”:
Yeah, you won’t be getting THIS song out of your head anytime soon.
Anyway, I can’t decide if this clip actually approves of the American expansion across the continent, or if it just SEEMS like it because it’s been so long since I’ve heard the process discussed without the use of the phrase “smallpox infected blankets”.
Bonus points to the Schoolhouse Rock folks for not sneering contemptuously after using the phrase “Manifest Destiny”. I can’t imagine that happening today.
This is the piece I probably should’ve started the whole Capitalist Propaganda category out with. Coronet Film’s 1949 production of “Propaganda Techniques”:
You might’ve thought I was being tongue-in-cheek when I referred to the previous videos as “propaganda”, but I was quite serious. Propaganda is, after all “the systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause”.
Although the word picked up heavily negative connotations due to its effective and pervasive use by the Nazis and Communists, propaganda is not necessarily wrong or evil. It can also be used in support of the right and the good. It’s up to the recipient of a propaganda message to determine the worth and accuracy of the content of any particular message.
The first step in doing so is to become aware of the techniques of propaganda, so that you can analyze whether a message is accurate, or merely persuasive. This film is an excellent start.
As an exercise for the viewer, feel free to discuss Obama’s use of propaganda in the comments.
Another modern piece (2002), this is a flash animation based on the epilogue of Ken Schoolland’s book, “The Adventures of Jonathan Gullible.” I present Kerry Pearson’s “The Philosophy of Liberty”:
The setting is the “futuristic” year 2000, and there’s plenty of cute Jetson-esque predictions that aren’t even close, but eventually [at 4:31, if you want to skip ahead] it gets to the heart of the matter – a documentary on the historical development of the automobile.
I like this bit because it makes you really appreciate how hard the auto industry works to keep improving their product, year after year.
It also makes you wonder what cars would be like if serving the customer were their only goal, and they didn’t have to keep meeting insane & arbitrary government standards and regulations which only serve to add cost without providing benefits to the consumer.
