IT COULD BE A FAIRLY DECENT LIFE

Last weekend I decided to give “the new generations” a flavour of classic cinema through the staple Christmas film “It’s a Wonderful Life”. I had seen it countless times so, much to my own surprise, I was surprised to realize how topical the movie can prove nowadays, in spite of it being a respectable 60 – year – old.

I assume the film is well known enough that we needn’t go into details about its plot. Thus, to start with, let me simply point out that Potter’s striving to engulf Bedford Falls is likely to strike many a Spaniard’s chord, specially when he succeeds in  making it home to an impressive display of night clubs and gambling dens in the hypothetical world version visited by George Bailey and his Guardian angel. Why? Well, it’s not difficult to associate the sleazy scenario depicted in the later stage of the film with Eurovegas, magnate Adelson’s controversial project to set up a mega-casino on the southern outskirts of Madrid as a way, the obliging local authorities claim, of fostering employment and economic growth in that part of the region.

But I deem in the World’s current context the film is worth some reflections from a less limited perspective. There is no denial that mixed views on “It’s a Wonderful Life” have been expressed over time, harsh criticism on Capra’s work being mainly grounded on its utterly unrealistic concept of life, which is something nobody in their wits would argue about. However, as far as I’m concerned, that’s immaterial if we take the story as the symbol of a more general conflict.

Actually, after coming round from the TV screen magical effect, the second thing that came to my mind, the first thing being Adelson and his life-improving project for South – West Madrid, was a famous article Einstein wrote in 1949 - http://monthlyreview.org/2009/05/01/why-socialism  –, where he presented socialism as the way forward to overcoming the so called “predatory phase” of human development, the expression of which he found in capitalism. In the famous physicist's view, that "predatory" drive had led the world to so much distress in his days, and no doubt so has in ours. However, Einstein’s article ended up on a restless note: “how is it possible, in view of the far – reaching centralization of political en economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all – powerful and overweening?” In this respect, the pitched battle Potter and Bailey fight throughout our movie may contain a fruitful suggestion: what’s the key element to the story happy ending? As iI see it, it is reciprocal empowerment. Indeed, Bailey devoted his professional life to providing affordable loans to the working-class people in his community, what perhaps would be called “microcredits” nowadays, so they could live in decent houses. In their turn, when things went awry for Bailey, not only those he had helped were grateful enough to rush in his help, but they were also in the position to do so, precisely because Bailey had saved them from being derelict first.

So today, after the experience accumulated over nearly 60 years from Einstein's article, maybe it is possible to hold that the dilemma is no longer socialism vs. capitalism, as Einstein put it. Perhaps now the most fruitful approach to leading a more satisfactory, balanced life would be "atomization" of power with co-operative relationships, i.e.: people's reciprocal empowerment, vs.  unlimited economic and political power concentrated in a few hands.

Moreover, I can’t help thinking that an ever – increasing concentration of economic power is bound to lead to the “entropic” death of the system in the course of time. Think of this: once the few powerful have gathered so much wealth from the community’s production that they have made most producers miserable, what can they expect to be able to sell to them?

At the end of his article, Einstein refers to the detached attitude of most of his contemporaries to the threats the world was facing as "the expression of a painful solitude and isolation from which so many people are suffering in these days", to add right thereafter: "What is the cause? Is there a way out?" Was it perhaps the intuition of that pervasive entropic decay of the system I have just mentioned which made Einstein entertain those grim reflections?

 

Picture: greatfun4kidsblog.com

Credits: http://iniciativadebate.org/2012/11/18/por-que-socialismo-un-articulo-de-albert-einstein/