Saw Michael Moore’s “Capitalism: A Love Story” earlier this week, and it was a bit of a sprawling mess. Lots of nuggets in there, but it lacked focus; as a film, I thought Fahrenheit 9/11 was way better. But “Capitalism” wasn’t intended to merely be a film, it was designed as political agitprop. I just think Moore demands action in a society that’s grown complacent, or worse - grown to accept that the economic indignities heaped on its head are actually pleasant and good.
Case in point being some of the reaction to the story today that D&E Communications will be laying off 250-270 of its workers in Lancaster County. This, because the company is now owned by Windstream Communications, an Arkansas firm that’s looking to cut costs, and the local staff duplicates what the parent firm already has in place.
“It’s really that simple,” said Windstream’s Barry Bishop in Tim Mekeel’s article today.
Right. It’s really that simple for Windstream. It’s a frickin’ disaster for Lancaster County.
These are your neighbors who are now SOL. And so I’m stunned, really just floored, to see a reaction like this, in the comment thread:
But what if the company couldn’t afford to keep these workers employed? Then the company would risk totally going out of business, and losing even more workers. It sucks, but that’s just how it is.
Just basic economics really. Fallacies of composition and decomposition…what is good for the individual isn’t necessarily good for the whole, and vice versa.
But understand this: In this case, we are the whole. This community is the whole. Windstream purchased D&E; this isn’t a matter of a company downsizing in order to survive.
And so when we cheer, “Yay capitalism!” we are - in this case - cheering against our hometown. Hey, that’s just the way the system operates - and it is. But to say it’s for the best?
The best for whom?
It’s pointedly not for the best of the nearly 300 D&E employees who are going to be out of work, or their families. Do you understand? Our system guarantees individual freedom at the expense of the whole; but when the whole is us, it’s cold comfort to think that someone somewhere - maybe in Arkansas, maybe someone in California who owns Windstream stock - is making out via better stock prices or dividends. Because here people are going to have a hard time finding a new job and making ends meet. Here there is going to be misery because of this; here there is going to be family stress and uncertainty and despair.
I don’t live in Arkansas or California. I live here. So do you.
Moore’s film was a mess but the takeaway was something all of us know - the system we have is not equitable. Maybe it’s folly to think that government can make it equitable, and maybe this inequitable system is indeed the best available. But to pretend - a la Glenn Beck and that whole cadre of conservative commentators whose main job is to protect and build up the plutocracy - that what has happened in Ephrata is in the long run some sort of positive thing is the most poisonous lie I can imagine. It’s a disaster and it’s our disaster. And so amidst the rubble some smile and say Thank you, may I have another? You’ll get it. So will we all.
