Recently, I watched Michael Moore’s documentary “Capitalism: A Love Story”. As always with his films, I found it to be entertaining propaganda.
One of his primary arguments is that the rich have duped “the rest of us” (Moore brilliantly aligns himself with the workingman) into believing in capitalism by spreading the myth that anyone in America can become rich.
It’s a wonderful irony. Here is a guy, the son of an autoworker from Flint, Michigan, who gets rich in America through hard work and initiative… and then makes a movie based on the premise that you can’t do that.
The truth, as Moore sees it, is that the only power the poor have over their financial future is to vote in social democracy — where the “system” works to put more money in the pockets of the working and middle classes. (Though, as history has proven, that doesn’t usually happen.)
The reason socialists have a problem with capitalism is that it cannot make everyone wealthy. And that’s true. I like the idea of making the world a richer place. But I know from experience that it can be done only one person at a time.
And this brings us to the question Moore raises in his film: Is it possible for an ordinary person — without special contacts or resources — to become wealthy in America today?
I’ve been studying that question since I started writing about wealth building 10 years ago. And it’s clear to me that ordinary, unconnected, wage-earning Americans do it all the time.
I’ve mentored at least a dozen people who started out at the bottom and are now multimillionaires. So Moore’s premise, I’m saying, is bullshit. You can get wealthy in America. And there are three ways to do it:
- You can get wealthy by scrimping and saving.
- You can get wealthy by hoping and praying.
- You can get wealthy by earning and investing.