Are we really a society of self-interested individuals pursuing our own personal greed?

 

Lionel Barrymore 

Frank Capra's 1946 film called "It's a Wonderful Life", is a Christmas classic and one of my favourite films.

The Russian-born American writer Ayn Rand, who wrote the pro-capitalist dystopian novel called 'Atlas Shrugged', told the FBI that Capra's film starring James Stewart, Donna Reed and Lionel Barrymore, was communist propaganda. Rand had worked in Hollywood as a scriptwriter and had written the Hollywood guide to making pro-capitalist movies - a sort of Ten Commandments. When the film was initially released it wasn't a great success and Capra lost money on it. Some of the actors didn't even watch a screening of the film. I believe that Donna Reed didn't watch the film until the 1970s. Nor was the film made as a Christmas classic even though the action takes place on a Christmas Eve, in a place called Bedford Falls.

One of the things that fascinates me about this film is its moral strain. James Stewart, plays George Bailey, who runs a small savings and loans bank, whereas, Mr Potter his rival is portrayed as a scheming rapacious self-interested capitalist. Bailey, who faces financial ruin when some money goes missing and then contemplates suicide, isn't really an anti-capitalist, but he's a community minded person who wants to good by his neighbours. He possibly believes in a kind of ethical or moral capitalism. As a businessman, Henry Potter is far shrewder and shows far more business acumen than Bailey. Potter's mantra would be “fair is foul and foul is fair.” Yet in spite of his shortcomings, it's George Bailey that we all warm to and who we empathise with and Mr Potter who we generally despise. Bailey is rescued from oblivion by his guardian angel called Clarence and by the generosity of his neighbours in Bedford Falls who donate money to keep Bailey's bank solvent.

There's no doubt about it that this story and the film itself, was inspired by ‘A Christmas Carol’, by Charles Dickens. Ayn Rand despised altruism and compassion and saw selfishness and self-interest as the only true virtue. She railed against state welfare systems, yet in later life, as her health declined, she finished up on social security and Medicare.

There are those who would have us believe that we're all self-interested individuals pursuing our own personal greed and interests like Mr Potter. If that was the case, then why we do we have lifeboat volunteers or a RNLI that is funded and financed by public donations and why do people donate to charities? A society that's made up of an aggregate of self-interested egoists, is no society at all. No matter how much it pains free market capitalist crackpots like Ayn Rand, there always will be acts of altruism and an inner decency that resides within most human beings and that's why some many of us can identify with the fictional character of George Bailey.