Capitalism is evil: Michael Moore Movie Echos Ancient Beliefs

If you want to keep up with celebrity news a Toronto newspaper is a good place to get it.

The Toronto International Film Festival is in full swing, with its long list of celebrities and accompanying red carpet antics.

But there’s one story in particular that might be of interest to archaeology fans out there. 

Michael Moore (of Fahrenheit 9/11 fame) is out with his new movie, Capitalism: A Love Story. He held a 45 minute press conference in Toronto to publicize it and he’s given a number of media interviews about his ideas.

The movie, from what I’ve read, can best be summed up by this quote- “capitalism is evil.” His idea being that our economic system, with its social inequities and corporate influence, is serving many of us poorly and we need to move to a system that is more egalitarian.

In one interview, on Larry King Live, pictures were shown of an automotive plant in Flint Michigan, where his dad worked, which has recently been torn down. Michigan has been going through a period of economic upheaval the past decade. Its unemployment rate, (about 16 percent) is among the highest in the United States.

I expect that given the timeliness of Moore’s argument (big businesses are not the most fashionable institutions in North America at the moment) his movie will do well.

But, Moore's idea goes back into Michigan's history... possibly as far back as 1,000 years. How this can be is a bit complicated so read on.

As this article summarizes, 1,000 years ago there was a revolution of sorts in the Great Lakes area (including the area around Flint). The people who lived there, whom we call Iroquoian, began to depend on farming for survival and moved into year round settlements to support it.

As time goes on these settlements become bigger and people build large communal houses known as “longhouses.” This continues for nearly 600 years, until Europeans arrive in large numbers.

One thing that doesn’t happen is that we don’t see the arrival of what we would consider a “capitalist” society. Society continued to be egalitarian. Indeed the longhouses, where numerous families live in one home, are a symbol of this. There are no “palaces” or super-rich burials or even monumental architecture.

I asked several prominent Great Lakes archaeologists if cities, monuments and a ruling class, the things associated with capitalism, would have appeared in the Great Lakes if Europeans had just stayed away. I got a number of interesting responses including one from Professor David Smith, of the University of Toronto Mississauga, who told me about this gem of an idea. 

“The Iroquoian people – they’re tribal peoples and what that means (is that) in the villages, that their social relations, their political formations, that they believe very strongly in egalitarianism,” he said.

“Bruce Trigger - one of Canada’s foremost archaeologists, unfortunately he died just a little while ago, wrote extensively about this. He has a paper that makes the argument that Iroquoians purposely kept their society as egalitarian as possible - they knew all about it - they knew what they were doing.”

Whether Bruce Trigger was correct is another matter (I should add that Trigger did extensive research on Ancient Egypt as well). But the idea is certainly intriguing.

Ron Williamson pointed out to me that the people of the Great Lakes were aware of a larger world “that we don’t often give them credit for.”

He explained that people in the Great Lakes would have been aware of life at least as far south as Florida. As such they would have had some contact with Mississippian people in the Midwest who built monumental earthworks, created elaborate burials and even built a city called Cahokia.

In addition to knowing of these projects to the south, might ancient people in the Great Lakes have also been aware of a gap between the rulers and ruled? Might they also have decided not to go down this road?

It’s impossible to prove for sure. But If Trigger is correct it is an irony that this decision to remain egalitarian happened in the Great Lakes. A region where modern-day American civilization is facing a difficult challenge – and a modern day filmmaker is calling for a return to a economic system similar to that used, in his own state, 1,000 years ago.

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Owen Jarus (follow me: e-mail or )

Last three pieces by this author:

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Owen Jarus is a freelance writer based in Toronto ,Canada. He has written articles on archaeology for a variety of media outlets including The Canadian Press newswire (CP), U of T Magazine, The Mississauga News and The Guelph Mercury. Education: BA from the University of Toronto in History, Geography and Near & Middle Eastern Civilizations.