Heather Warner
September 25, 2000
Economics in Film
(Economics 100 (02))
Professor Gabriel
Economic processes are
those involving the production and distribution of goods and services.
However, they do not alone determine this production and distribution.
There is an interrelationship of economic, cultural, environmental,
and political processes that all help to shape each other. Nothing
that we do can be defined as a single process, for it is the interaction
itself that helps to produce the final results that we observe.
To understand this more fully the following basic definitions
may be of use:
"Cultural Processes"
are those that involve the creation and transfer of knowledge-the
production of meaning. "Political processes" are those
by which we establish and enforce rules, and they have to be reproduced
and communicated by way of cultural processes. And finally, "Environmental
Processes" are processes and transformations of matter into
other matter or matter into energy through various activities.
From this one can see that the "state" of the environment
is affected by culture, politics, and economics. To reiterate,
we can't talk about economics and the questions that it attempts
to resolve, without talking about or at least including these
other aspects because they all interact and must be considered
as well.
There are a number of fundamental
questions that economic systems attempt to solve: How does one
gain access to the resources needed to produce new and useful
goods and services? How does one get humans to perform the labor?
How do you organize the production process? How do you get the
produced output into the hands of consumers? And finally, who
gets the surplus and what do they do with it? Using these questions
as a basic framework, one can attempt to determine the type of
economic system that was (is) in existence at a specific time,
depending on the types of answers that are given to the above
mentioned questions.
Films are important and useful
tools for the analytical process that needs to take place when
searching for the answers to the questions. "Films are understood
to be, among other things, the product of a particular economic
theory or set of theories (which can be contradictory), to teach
particular theories (including economic theories), and to provide
an objective for analysis using economic theory." (Professor
Gabriel) It is with this in mind that the films of Matewan
and Norma Rae are of importance to us when analyzing the
concepts of "feudalism" and "capitalism,"
because they are films that contain in them examples from these
two types of economic systems. While the concept of "unions"
is prevalent in both films, the reasons for their existence and
the results of their existence appear to be quite different, but
important all the same. Thus, the films can also be used to help
increase our understanding of the importance and the role of "unions"
in society.
John Sayles, the writer and
director of Matewan, produces for the audience a true depiction
of the West Virginian coal-mining community of 1920. At a surface-level
viewing and examination of the film, many might be tempted to
view the environment that is "created" as capitalist.
After all, the workers do get paid for their services. However,
upon a much deeper, more in-depth inspection one could argue that
there is much evidence to support that it is in fact a feudalist
system that is being portrayed and fought by the workers and various
members of the community.
Therefore to start, the only
mention of capitalism that I will make at this moment (I will
explore it more thoroughly later in this essay) is that a free
labor market is a necessary "prerequisite" for capitalism.
This, as evidence will later show, is clearly lacking in Matewan
and thus our attention can first be shifted to analyzing the feudalist
system.
Feudalism in general, broad
terms, is a system under which men in the past gave up personal
freedom in exchange for protection and security. There was a contractual
relationship involved. It began where the King owned all of the
land and he leased the land to nobles. The nobles repaid him in
such methods as homage, taxes, military service, etc… They
were able to repay the king because they too leased the land-only
they leased it to lesser nobles-and so it continued along this
type of social scale. Ultimately, the "workings" and
results of this system depended on the serf. ("Middle Ages:
Age of Feudalism.")
To further help one understand
the concept of feudalism, we can analyze a few typical characteristics
of feudalism and determine if all, or at least some, of the characteristics
appear to be present in the movie. With feudalism, the distinction
between the private rights and public authority oftentimes disappears,
and local control tends to become a personal matter. Feudal leaders
often take over responsibility for the economic security of "their
territories" and dictate how resources are to be used, while
at the same time establishing monopolies over various activities.
Another important part to the concept of feudalism is "homage"
(servant) and "fealty" (faithful). In other words, this
can be interpreted into a more modern concept of a "contract"
between the worker and the boss. ("The Rise of Feudalism.")
From these few basic concepts and ideas being put forward, one
can see how Sayles demonstrates and portrays certain aspects of
the existence of a feudalist-type system in the town of Matewan;
as these above mentioned "properties" of feudalism were
certainly present in his film.
To start, perhaps the most
direct, obvious evidence of the feudalist atmosphere that is present
in the movie is when the miners who are brought in on the train
(African Americans) are told that they are under a "direct
contract" of the Stone Mountain Coal Company (SMCC). Their
freedoms are seen to be restricted as they are told what they
are and are not allowed to do. For example, no unions are allowed
to be formed and those involved in such attempts to form unions
will be fired and not given any payment. Furthermore, the workers
depend almost entirely on the company to supply them with necessities-at
a cost of course. All equipment needed must be purchased by the
workers and can only be purchased with company script at the company
store. Furthermore, things that are considered "extra,"
such as the train ride, will be deducted from their already minimal
amount of pay. The audience also sees the importance of this monopoly
power by the Company over the workers in that their "pay
per tonnage" has again just recently been lowered. With this
monopoly power the Company is able to increase prices at the store
and yet pay less to the workers. The Company is able to do this
with no substantial loss to the Company itself because they know
that the workers have no real other choice than to work for the
Company and buy things in the store due to the fact that other
appealing methods of survival are lacking.
It might be useful to mention
that along with this monopoly power, basic political processes
help to keep the people in check as well. Although the local authority
of the town, consisting of the sheriff (Sid) and the Mayor, try
to keep the Company men under control, the Company authority are
able to more effectively enforce many rules under the threat of
violence. Cultural differences and religious differences also
work in favor of and to the advantage of the Company at first,
as African Americans need jobs and are willing to come in and
perform the job of mining at a lower price of labor. This is demonstrated
at the beginning of the film when the train arrives in Matewan
carrying the African Americans. At first this arrival of new workers
puts all of the people in the town at odds, weakening the effectiveness
of the local authority (because so many different issues are still
being sorted out) and strengthening that of the Company whose
sole concern is making a large profit. Only later does everyone
unite into the Union (Whites, Italians, and African Americans)
and eventually sleep, eat, and play music and sports together.
Coming back to the idea of
feudalism and the "lack of choice and lack of freedom"
that appears to go hand-in-hand with this system, one can see
how prominent this characteristic is in the movie. The Stone Mountain
Coal Company appears to own most everything in the town. The unskilled
laborers (miners) don't appear to have any real choice in where
they work. This is indicative of "hegemonic power" that
the elite company-men seem to have over the people. The townsmen
can either work in the mine, work at one of the few stores in
town, or starve. But whether they work in the mine or the town
store wouldn't make much difference, as the SMCC owns and controls
everything-has monopoly power. Thus there appears to be no real
choice left as to who the workers might want as their employer,
and the Company can thus extract "monopoly rent" from
them and exercise what is known as "feudal exploitation."
The SMCC controls the price of goods and the price of labor (wages)-extracting
all extra money from the workers and leaving barely enough for
them to live by. The company wants a big profit-at any expense.
They exploit the workers in order to reap the benefits of their
labor and obtain all surplus value. As we see in the film, the
Company doesn't really care if the workers live or die, so long
as coal is gotten and a profit made. To the SMCC, the men are
merely a form of equipment that can and should be exploited until
they can no longer be used.
Some might be tempted to say that the workers did have a choice.
If they were not happy then they just should not work-as happened
when they formed a Union. However, especially on an individual
basis, not working and then having to escape into the mountains
and woods is not really much of a choice. Sure, one could argue
that it is a viable option or alternative to working in the mine.
But I ask, "is it really?" Could the miners really live
a "normal" life this way? Given time they might very
well adapt to "mountain life" but survival would appear,
at least at first, to be much harder. To me, this alternative
does not seem to be a very appealing alternative, and thus not
much of a choice.
In fact, there doesn't seem
to be much of a choice in regards to any aspect of lifestyle in
the town of Matewan. One of the Italian workers demonstrates the
lack of free choice in his response to being asked to join the
union by a white mine worker. The Italian man's response is, "We
don't have a whole lot of choice. We join the Union and they (meaning
the Company men) shoot us. We don't join and you will shoot us
for working." Choice in all respects seems to be lacking
in this town.
Furthermore, when the Company men come into town, we see how everything
is viewed as "theirs." They are allowed to stay free
of charge at the "hotel" and require free, home cooked
meals-as it is the Company that "owns" the hotel. Later
the Company men try to take all the furniture out of an Italian
family's home. In this way one can see how the SMCC did indeed
seem to have extended economic control over the town-as everything
was theirs and all that was used by the town inhabitants had to
be paid for. This further demonstrates the monopoly power of the
SMCC.
Another comparison to feudal
times is that Griggsey and Hicks (two of the Company men) are
hired as the main enforcers for the Company (similar to the role
of Knights during feudal times). Griggsey and Hicks are incredibly
evil and mean-spirited, and they bully everyone in order to get
their way. They even go so far as to kill people (the first person
that they kill is Hillard) in order to make a point. What kind
of choice is this to either work or end up dead through starvation
or being killed?
Throughout the movie, Joe
attempts to get the people to stand together as a union of workers
and not to just resort to guns as the solution. However, despite
his efforts, in the end the bloody Matewan Massacre takes place.
Many Company men and Union men are killed; each as a result of
defending a different economic system. The Company men are defending
a feudalist system, while the Union men want a different system.
The Union men want a system with free choices and are therefore
ultimately defending (although perhaps not aware of it) what we
term today as a "capitalist system." The creation of
the union in Matewan, however could never have been sufficient
to change the feudal system to a capitalist system unless it successfully
broke the monopoly of the SMCC, or at the very least forced the
SMCC to voluntarily grant the workers more freedoms than they
had. Unfortunately, the union effort failed and was not able to
achieve what the workers had hoped for, as the end of the film
demonstrates. They were unable through the union or their strike,
to cause the SMCC to lose control over the workers for a long
enough time to cause the demise of the feudalist system that was
in place. Until the monopoly in place is (was) eliminated, the
feudal system could never have been eliminated.
As mentioned numerous times
already, a simple distinction between feudalism and other systems
can be made with the presence or absence of choice. Capitalism
requires the presence of free choice. As Bernice Clark stated
in her essay, "Capitalism requires competition over capital,
not just capital." This is to say that merely being paid
a wage does not mean that a society is representative of a capitalist
one. There has to be competition so employees can choose who to
work for and hopefully, therefore, diminish the probability of
excess monopoly rent being present and extracted, such as is the
case when solely one owner can determine the prices of goods and
the price of labor (wages). Sunny Webster, a character in Norma
Rae (taking place in 1978 and "based on a true story")
worked in the Cotton Textile factory with Norma Rae and others
at one time. However, the evidence of "free choice"
in this capitalist society is apparent when he later mentions
that he has a new job at a gas station. We also get a sense of
his opinion towards the capitalist atmosphere of the textile plant
when he says, "Big companies get everything that they want.
Everything goes to the rich men." He however, chooses to
work elsewhere, rather than fight for his rights with others in
the Union.
Presently there appears to
be a variety of mixed feelings concerning the concept and results
of capitalism. Today there are those who believe that capitalism
is a rational, benevolent system if no government intervention
is imposed. However, on the flip side there are those who view
capitalism as a system of exploitation, monopoly, and class welfare.
To define this term a bit more concretely one can say that "capitalism
is the social system based upon private ownership of the means
of production…" (Shadab) From a purely economic point
of view, a capitalist is a person who buys in order to sell for
profit. To extend this a bit further it can also be defined in
a slightly different manner as the "economic and social regime
in which the ownership and benefits of productive assets are appropriated
by the few to the exclusion of the many who through their labor
make the assets productive." (Korten)
Some believe that the free
market operates in such a way so that as one man creates more
wealth for himself, he simultaneously creates more wealth and
opportunities for everyone else-so the rich become richer and
the poor become richer too. Others believe that this is not fair,
does not increase the wealth of the nation, and is simply a form
of exploitation. I think that Norma Rae tries to portray to the
audience the view of capitalism that supports the idea that we
live in a world that is being "pillaged by the institution
of global capitalism to enrich the few at the expense of the many,"
(Korten) but that it need not nor should not be this way, even
with the capitalist system in place.
It appears to me that a more
negative view of capitalism is held in Norma Rae-thus the
need to form a union to protect the workers from the employers.
In this film it would seem that capitalism is viewed as a system
that can exploit a large portion of society for the sake of a
small minority of wealthy capitalists. The institutions of capitalism
being viewed in this film, are seen by their very nature, "to
breed inequality, exclusion, environmental destruction, social
irresponsibility, and economic instability..." (Korten) It
would seem that Norma Rae, herself, is against the form of capitalism
that encourages and rewards speculators and is instead for a proper
market economy that encourages and rewards those who contribute
to wealth creation through their labor and productive investment.
In other words, I'm not saying that Norma Rae is a movie
against the capitalist system, but rather against certain exploitations
that might occur if proper precautions are not taken. The workers
in the film were not fighting against the system of capitalism,
but instead were making the best of the system and were merely
trying to improve their working conditions within the system in
place. This is evident from the fact that the workers did not
appear to be trying to end control over the gross profits obtained
by the company, nor were they trying to create their own communal
enterprise, or leave the company to work as self-employed individuals
or as partners, etc… In other words, there is no evidence
of their trying to work in any other non-capitalist arrangement.
Norma Rae takes the stance
on capitalism of it easily becoming "evil" if left in
the wrong hands. I think that she would probably agree with the
following negative quotation concerning capitalism and therefore
wish it to be changed (thus the need for a Union). "Under
capitalism, democracy is for sale to the highest bidder, the market
is centrally planned by global mega-corporations larger than most
countries, the elimination of jobs and livelihoods is rewarded
as an economic virtue, and the destruction of nature and life
to make money for the already rich is viewed as progress."
(Korten) We seem to have created a global culture that values
money and materialism over life itself; and it is this that Norma
Rae is also against. Norma Rae fights for the rights of the workers,
and she tells her kids, "If you go into the Mill I want things
to be better for you than they are for me. That is why I joined
the Union. And that is why I got fired for it." Again, the
formation of the union was not to eliminate the capitalist system,
and in fact, the creation of the union in Norma Rae did
not move the workers out of the capitalist system. Instead the
formation of the union merely helped to constrain what the managers
could do to them and how (the fashion in which) the managers could
try to compel the workers to work and produce for the company.
The Company that Norma Rae
works for is concerned with profits. They don't seem to care about
basic human needs or human welfare. They want to find ways to
make workers as productive as possible, even if their health and
general well-being is at stake. Plus, while productivity is the
top priority on their list, they want to keep wages low. This
is demonstrated as we are told that Norma's father has had the
same wage of $1.33 the entire time that he has worked at the factory.
We are also shown the lack of concern for the workers' welfare
as they tell Norma that her mother will be fine and her hearing
will return in a few hours. Another instance is when Norma's father's
arm becomes numb, and yet the employers tell him that he has to
wait until his official break time before taking a rest. Yet another
example is when one worker states, "We must remain on our
feet unless we bring a note from the doctor."
Today we can see that often
the corporation destroys "living capital" when it strip-mines
forests and exploits fisheries, markets toxic chemicals, dumps
hazardous wastes, etc.... It destroys "human capital"
by maintaining substandard working conditions. And it destroys
"social capital" when it breaks up unions, bids down
wages, and treats workers as expendable commodities. (Korten)
It is all of this that Norma Rae is against and wants reformed-watched
out for. Again, I'm not implying that Norm Rae wanted to change
out of a capitalist system and into another system, but rather
to prevent unnecessary exploitation from occurring. In the end
the workers are successful and have formed a Union, as the results
of the poll show that there are only 373 votes against the Union
in comparison to the 427 votes in favor of the Union. This is
certainly a step in the right direction for the workers.
The workers, in a sense, in
Matewan are fighting for a more capitalist economy (although
as the end of the film shows they are unsuccessful), while in
Norma Rae the workers seem to fight to reform capitalism
a bit so that worker rights are protected. It seems that while
living under specific systems we constantly try to change and
"improve" the systems. Yet once achieving the specific
type of system that we "worked" so hard to get, faults
are found and exploitation often occurs. Thus, dissatisfaction
arises and it is again necessary to alter the system. Capitalism
and feudalism are but two systems that have been present in our
economy, and there will surely be many more as employers and employees
work to improve their own social welfare.
**Side Note (interesting information)**à [In my research and exploration of these topics I found an interesting, additional bit of information on "feudalism." It was stated that although we tend to believe that feudalism no longer exists, the Mafia uses the same type of organization. We must also keep in mind that many franchise enterprises (for example McDonalds's) use a similar system as well. ("The Rise of Feudalism.")]
"Feudalism." http://www.maricopa.edu/academic/cult_sci/anthro/lost_tribes/Feudalism.html
Korten, David C. "Life After Capitalism." November
1998.
http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/capitalism.html
"Middle Ages: Age of Feudalism."
http://www.intelliseek.com/cgi- bin/nphProFusion.pl?queryterm=feudalism&option=all&display=10&totalverify=0&auto=all&engine1=AltaVista&engine2=
"Organized Labor."
Wysiwyg://16http://www.britannica.com/b…article/9/0,5716,115719+1+108786,00.html
Professor Gabriel course web page http://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/filmcourse.html
Shadab, Houman. "Capitalism: Frequently Asked Questions."
1996.
http://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~shadab/
"The Rise of Feudalism." http://www.ukans.edu/kansas/medieval/108/lectures/feudalism.html
"What's Wrong With Capitalism." http://www.geocites.com/Paris/2159/capindx.html