Sunday 19 June 2011

Hollywood Was Not Always Socialist

That Hollywood is, despite itself consisting of businesses that aim to make a profit, a part of the socialist anti-business movement is beyond reasonable argument. Pointing to the numerous films where absurd plots make businesses and their senior executives the antagonist is a fairly weak argument, albeit true, but there is now a book detailing evidence, Primetime Propaganda and of course a whole website of news about Big Hollywood from right-wing commentators which documents left-wing foolishness.

I am a great fan of Audrey Hepburn, so am watching Sabrina, where Hepburn plays the eponymous heroine, and her (eventual) love interest, played by Humphrey Bogart is a senior executive of a large, family-run conglomerate. At one point his wastrel, playboy brother he asks what his “urge to go into plastics” will prove. His answer is something a socialist could never write

“Prove? Nothing much.

A new product has been found, something of use to the world, so a new industry moves into an undeveloped area. Factories go up, machines are brought in, a harbor is dug and you're in business.

It’s purely coincidental of course that people who never saw a dime before suddenly have a dollar, and bare-footed kids wear shoes and have their teeth fixed and their faces washed.

What’s wrong with the kind of an urge that gives people libraries, hospitals, baseball diamonds and uh, movies on a Saturday night?”

This is one of the best rebuttals I have ever heard of socialism, a succinct explanation of why business should be encouraged, and not opposed.

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