Simon Cowell vs. Michael
Moore
In his highly profitable film, Capitalism: A Love Story, multimillionaire Michael Moore makes the claim that “capitalism” is “evil” and must be replaced by “democracy.”
Now, Mikey is not known for his precise definition of terms—especially since he seems completely ignorant of the fact that economic systems and political systems are not opposites, and thus one cannot “replace” the other.
So it’s difficult to figure out just what he meant by “capitalism” and “democracy.” But what the heck--I’ll take a stab at it.
I think Moore would agree with me if I say that democracy is an arrangement where we all get to vote on what’s best for everybody, and the winners, even if they win by just one vote out of 100 million, have the fundamental human right to impose their agenda on the losers, at gunpoint if necessary.
It’s harder to tell what he means by “capitalism,” but he might say that it’s an arrangement where everybody does whatever the heck he or she wants, without supervision by wiser heads.
So what does this have to do with Simon Cowell?
Just this: entrepreneurial wizards such as Simon Cowell, Nigel Lythgoe, and Simon Fuller have provided us with great examples of how “democracy” and “capitalism” function in the real world, by creating TV programs such as The X Factor, So You Think You Can Dance, and American Idol.
Unless you have been living among the Yanomami for the last 12 years, you probably know that American Idol is a televised singing competition in which the winner gets a $250,000 recording contract, and the losers get virtually nothing. The winner is selected democratically, by a vote of the viewers.
In Michael Moore’s perfect world, this would be the end of it; the winner would go on to fame & fortune, and the losers would go back to waiting tables and cleaning toilets.
But this is the real world, where American Idol exists within a larger environment called the “entertainment industry,” an aggressively capitalistic free market in which consumers can “do whatever the heck they want,” and decide for themselves whose songs to buy and whose concerts to attend.
Every year in May, Forbes Magazine publishes a list of the top American Idol money makers. In Moore’s world, this list would consist of only past winners, because all other contestants would have been permanently eliminated. But, in the freedom of a capitalist world, things aren’t decided by a democratic winner-take-all rule. Here’s the latest list:
Carrie Underwood (winner, season 4)
Chris Daughtry (“loser,” season 5)
Adam Lambert (“loser,” season 8)
Fantasia Barrino (winner, season 3)
Jordin Sparks (winner, season 6)
Kelly Clarkson (winner, season 1)
Jennifer Hudson (“loser,” season 3)
Kellie Pickler (“loser,” season 5)
Clay Aiken (“loser,” season 2)
Katharine McPhee (“loser,” season 5)
David Archuleta (“loser,” season 7)
David Cook (winner, season 7)
Kris Allen (winner, season 8)
Lee DeWyze (winner, season 9)
Crystal Bowersox (“loser,” season 9)
Ruben Studdard (winner, season 2)
Of the sixteen names on this list, only eight are Michael Moore-style “winners.” Out here in the real world, all of them are winners.
And this is just the tip of the free market iceberg; many other “losers” are now successes, too, doing what they love, and making a good living at it.
I think it’s safe to say that capitalist entrepreneurs such as Simon Cowell have launched more careers, created more jobs, and brought happiness into more people’s lives each year than Michael Moore will in his entire lifetime. (Moore said in his blog that “I made the decision that I would never buy a share of stock…” That would put his job creation rate at about zero.)
Big Mikey, now that he’s made his $50 million in the free market, can afford to hype his anti-freedom agenda. He’s already got his—as far as he’s concerned, the rest of us can just go vote for a living.
If this were Mikey’s “winner-take-all” democratic world, he would probably be the one cleaning toilets.
