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American Capitalist
Financial Post
November 10, 2007
The movie American Gangster is the true-ish story of Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas. A bright, ruthless and charming country boy-turned-Superfly, Lucas got temporarily very rich by cutting out the middleman and going straight to the poppy fields of Southeast Asia. During the Vietnam War, he smuggled high-quality heroin in military coffins before cutting and distributing his havoc-wreaking "Blue Magic" to the black community.
Despite the presence of Academy Award winners Denzel Washington as Lucas and Russell Crowe as his cop nemesis, Richie Roberts, this is not a particularly great film. What makes it a particularly telling film, however, is what it -- and its reviews -- say about the image of capitalism in North American popular culture.
American Gangster is filled with talk of business "principles," delivered with an indeterminate amount of irony. Lucas lectures on the importance of "honesty, integrity and hard work." He stresses serving the consumer, to whom he offers twice the quality at half the price (thus shuffling him or her four times as quickly toward the grave). He is obsessively concerned about his "brand" and with "copyright infringement."
This insult to the Invisible Hand is served up with a liberal helping of Black History Month-style condescension. Russell Crowe's character suggests after collaring Lucas that traditional gangsters hate him because he represents black "progress." Some progress.
What is more disturbing is that so many reviewers have accepted the notion that what Frank Lucas practiced was "capitalism," and that capitalism and gangster-ism are pretty much joined at the hip.
According to John McCarty, author of Bullets over Hollywood, "Gangsterism is capitalism run rampant ? It's that old entrepreneurial spirit." Britain's Guardian (hardly a surprise) suggested that the gangster genre "has long since established itself as an endlessly flexible master-metaphor for American upward mobility, ethnic aspiration and zipless, untrammelled, laissez-faire capitalism." According to David Denby in The New Yorker, Lucas' "ascent" is presented "as a long-delayed victory of black capitalism." The Philadelphia Inquirer's review suggested that, "Like most mob films, [American] Gangster is a study in extreme capitalism." According to The Dallas Morning News, "Frank Lucas is a stone killer. He's also a thriving capitalist." The Columbus Dispatch noted that Lucas built "a capitalist empire." The Santa Fe New Mexican identified Lucas' "success" with "operating in the old-fashioned tradition of can-do American capitalism ? You couldn't ask more from Henry Ford."
Henry and Frank. Soul brothers in crime.
According to The Chicago Sun-Times, Lucas "cornered the New York drug trade with admirable capitalist strategies." Newsweek wrote that the movie "posits the pusher as a triumphant example of black capitalism." People magazine wrote that American Gangster "shows how, by applying capitalism's basic principles, Frank Lucas? came to dominate the New York City heroin trade."
The Chicago Sun -Times opined that "the moral core of the movie ? is a two-pronged look at the corrupting power of capitalism." A segment on National Public Radio described the film as "The capitalistic dream run amuck." The New York Sun called it: "The story of organized African-American crime/capitalism." The Chicago Tribune dubbed the film "addiction capitalism, '70s style." The Detroit News even sought to put a positive spin on the capitalism/crime connection: "Sure we're shown some of the ugly results of the heroin traffic that Lucas starts," its critic wrote, "but that's balanced by the old entrepreneurial spirit of American capitalism. Lucas is basically a tough competitor in a dirty business, working his way up from the streets."
Balanced! Heroin. Soap powder. What's the difference?
The notion that capitalism's basic principles might include real honesty would obviously be considered laughable to these reviewers. However, the thesis that a drug-pushing murderer might represent a signal example of capitalist "principles" is treated as mere conventional wisdom.
British historian Paul Johnson has acknowledged that capitalism is motivated by a good many of the alleged "seven deadly sins" (except sloth), but he never suggested that it might be squared with contravention of the sixth and eight commandments.
Frank Lucas was a murderer and a thief, albeit a charismatic one. He brought death and desolation to many thousands of people in, and beyond, the black community. His self-justification (which emerged in interviews with New York magazine's Mark Jacobson, on which the movie was loosely based) was that, as a black man, he couldn't even have gotten a job as a janitor on Wall Street. In fact, the movie The Pursuit of Happyness (sic) told the story of another black man, Chris Gardner (played by Will Smith), who not only overcame the toughest of conditions to make it on Wall Street, but wound up with his own brokerage company. Strangely, however, I can't remember the word "capitalist" ever cropping up in that inspiring film, although it certainly did in the reviews. The "right-wing" Daily Telegraph described it as a "thinly veiled apologia for rat-race capitalism." The Daily Mail described its "blind faith in the benevolence of capitalism" as "creepy."
Are you beginning to see a pattern here?
That criminals might use business methods is no more an indictment of capitalism than the experiments of Joseph Mengele were an indictment of science. Capitalism is not a perfect system, but it is by far the best the world has ever seen, and appears the only one compatible with personal freedom and material well-being. If it is sloppily considered the bedmate of crime, what chance does it have against the Naomi bin Ladens of this dangerous world?
Link
Financial Post
November 10, 2007
The movie American Gangster is the true-ish story of Harlem drug lord Frank Lucas. A bright, ruthless and charming country boy-turned-Superfly, Lucas got temporarily very rich by cutting out the middleman and going straight to the poppy fields of Southeast Asia. During the Vietnam War, he smuggled high-quality heroin in military coffins before cutting and distributing his havoc-wreaking "Blue Magic" to the black community.
Despite the presence of Academy Award winners Denzel Washington as Lucas and Russell Crowe as his cop nemesis, Richie Roberts, this is not a particularly great film. What makes it a particularly telling film, however, is what it -- and its reviews -- say about the image of capitalism in North American popular culture.
American Gangster is filled with talk of business "principles," delivered with an indeterminate amount of irony. Lucas lectures on the importance of "honesty, integrity and hard work." He stresses serving the consumer, to whom he offers twice the quality at half the price (thus shuffling him or her four times as quickly toward the grave). He is obsessively concerned about his "brand" and with "copyright infringement."
This insult to the Invisible Hand is served up with a liberal helping of Black History Month-style condescension. Russell Crowe's character suggests after collaring Lucas that traditional gangsters hate him because he represents black "progress." Some progress.
What is more disturbing is that so many reviewers have accepted the notion that what Frank Lucas practiced was "capitalism," and that capitalism and gangster-ism are pretty much joined at the hip.
According to John McCarty, author of Bullets over Hollywood, "Gangsterism is capitalism run rampant ? It's that old entrepreneurial spirit." Britain's Guardian (hardly a surprise) suggested that the gangster genre "has long since established itself as an endlessly flexible master-metaphor for American upward mobility, ethnic aspiration and zipless, untrammelled, laissez-faire capitalism." According to David Denby in The New Yorker, Lucas' "ascent" is presented "as a long-delayed victory of black capitalism." The Philadelphia Inquirer's review suggested that, "Like most mob films, [American] Gangster is a study in extreme capitalism." According to The Dallas Morning News, "Frank Lucas is a stone killer. He's also a thriving capitalist." The Columbus Dispatch noted that Lucas built "a capitalist empire." The Santa Fe New Mexican identified Lucas' "success" with "operating in the old-fashioned tradition of can-do American capitalism ? You couldn't ask more from Henry Ford."
Henry and Frank. Soul brothers in crime.
According to The Chicago Sun-Times, Lucas "cornered the New York drug trade with admirable capitalist strategies." Newsweek wrote that the movie "posits the pusher as a triumphant example of black capitalism." People magazine wrote that American Gangster "shows how, by applying capitalism's basic principles, Frank Lucas? came to dominate the New York City heroin trade."
The Chicago Sun -Times opined that "the moral core of the movie ? is a two-pronged look at the corrupting power of capitalism." A segment on National Public Radio described the film as "The capitalistic dream run amuck." The New York Sun called it: "The story of organized African-American crime/capitalism." The Chicago Tribune dubbed the film "addiction capitalism, '70s style." The Detroit News even sought to put a positive spin on the capitalism/crime connection: "Sure we're shown some of the ugly results of the heroin traffic that Lucas starts," its critic wrote, "but that's balanced by the old entrepreneurial spirit of American capitalism. Lucas is basically a tough competitor in a dirty business, working his way up from the streets."
Balanced! Heroin. Soap powder. What's the difference?
The notion that capitalism's basic principles might include real honesty would obviously be considered laughable to these reviewers. However, the thesis that a drug-pushing murderer might represent a signal example of capitalist "principles" is treated as mere conventional wisdom.
British historian Paul Johnson has acknowledged that capitalism is motivated by a good many of the alleged "seven deadly sins" (except sloth), but he never suggested that it might be squared with contravention of the sixth and eight commandments.
Frank Lucas was a murderer and a thief, albeit a charismatic one. He brought death and desolation to many thousands of people in, and beyond, the black community. His self-justification (which emerged in interviews with New York magazine's Mark Jacobson, on which the movie was loosely based) was that, as a black man, he couldn't even have gotten a job as a janitor on Wall Street. In fact, the movie The Pursuit of Happyness (sic) told the story of another black man, Chris Gardner (played by Will Smith), who not only overcame the toughest of conditions to make it on Wall Street, but wound up with his own brokerage company. Strangely, however, I can't remember the word "capitalist" ever cropping up in that inspiring film, although it certainly did in the reviews. The "right-wing" Daily Telegraph described it as a "thinly veiled apologia for rat-race capitalism." The Daily Mail described its "blind faith in the benevolence of capitalism" as "creepy."
Are you beginning to see a pattern here?
That criminals might use business methods is no more an indictment of capitalism than the experiments of Joseph Mengele were an indictment of science. Capitalism is not a perfect system, but it is by far the best the world has ever seen, and appears the only one compatible with personal freedom and material well-being. If it is sloppily considered the bedmate of crime, what chance does it have against the Naomi bin Ladens of this dangerous world?
Link
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
