Socialism always seems to have a marketing advantage over capitalism.  This is not surprising, because socialism is a deeply romantic notion: a dangerously seductive dream of prosperity as a function of justice, where the wise redistribute the profits of the wicked to care for the needy.  Socialism’s promises are so alluring that questions about its poor performance are dismissed as rude.  It is a childish philosophy, and like any errant child, it receives a limitless supply of forgiveness and second chances.

Doctor Zero at Hot Air demolishes Michael Moore and his latest anti-capitalist screed:

What about the little guy? Doesn’t he benefit under benign socialist control? Of course not. He never has, anywhere on Earth, during the many times collective governments have gained power. The common man might realize some short-term gains when the socialist government marches into power – wow, free health care! It never lasts. It can’t. Socialist control destroys the very mechanisms of prosperity it needs to pay off on its promises.

Would that Doctor Zero (or Doctor Zaius, for that matter– anyone with a greater intellectual range than Sean Hannity) had interviewed Michael Moore last night. Hannity sought, like Wolf Blitzer on CNN, to emphasize Moore’s hypocrisy for campaigning against capitalism while unashamedly indulging in its benefits. Moore is not an idiot, and he has learned to dodge and deflect these kinds of attacks, or misdirect with mock bonhomie.

The interview that I want to see is somebody confronting Moore with the mountains of evidence that a) his ideas are not new, but rather a sloppier and more Twitter-friendly iteration of a collectivist impulse that dates back to antiquity; and b) these ideas are responsible for more death, misery and brutality than any other single idea for organizing society in the history of the world.

But again, Moore is not an idiot, and he’d never agree to that interview.

Twenty years after “Roger & Me” introduced Michael Moore to the world as a politically engaged documentary maker with a strong knack for showmanship, “Capitalism: A Love Story” sums up his disgust with corporate America and its devastating effect on the lives of ordinary people.

The title is great and the balance of this Reuters article is reasonably well-balanced, but “[corporate America's] devastating effect on the lives of ordinary people?”

That seems awfully strong. Corporate America is responsible for the $1 double cheeseburger that I saw on a Burger King billboard today. I am pretty ordinary and I don’t think that’s devastating. But then again, that is just anecdotal, and wouldn’t hold up to the rigorous standard of circumspection and adherence to facts that Michael Moore continues to set.