Content warning: suicide.
Earlier this month, a conservative group in Arizona adapted a movie poster from the 1946 classic It’s a Wonderful Life to promote their “populist reception for the season,” entitled “It’s A Wonderful Nation.” The poster adds: “we’re saying ‘Merry Christmas!’” It’s only one among several recent politically motivated interpretations of the film:
- In 2018, the Federalist Society argued: “No, no, No: ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ Isn’t Socialist, Okay?” The staunch conservative think tank pointed out that the “Building and Loan is not a government organization supporting people in idleness, but a business offering loans to working men funded by the voluntary support of their neighbors. Charity is not socialism, and I beg conservatives to stop parroting the socialist lie that it is.” The private status of the Building and Loans as a non-government entity redeems the film from the threat of socialism according to the Federalist Society.
- The following year, in 2019, Current Affairs contributed a piece aptly titled “It’s A Wonderful Socialist Life,” claiming “It’s A Wonderful Life is a movie about socialism and how socialist values can triumph over capital. It makes a more thorough… case for socialism than any piece of American popular culture I can think of, and it contains many lessons about solidarity and collective action as it does about the kind of holiday morality, we usually associate with it.”
- Also in 2019, former Republican U.S. Senator Phil Gramm and conservative Mike Solon took to The Wall Street Journal to interject that “George Bailey Saw the Miracle of Capitalism,” arguing that “most working Americans see our economy and its demands as hard and challenging but ultimately redemptive.”
People view It’s a Wonderful Life through a prism of their own preconceptions, but their re-watches gloss over a deeper critique. This post applies Max Weber’s idea of the “iron cage” in his Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism to interpret It’s a Wonderful Life. I’m not claiming that Weber’s argument is correct, only applying it to the timeless classic. Clarence, George Bailey’s guardian angel, represents the divine spirit that motivated Puritan work ethic as Max Weber perceived it. Without Clarence or that spirit, society consists of endless striving, with most people working diligently only to land in debt. Remove Clarence, and George strives endlessly but ends up in debt regardless. George’s plight on the bridge at the movie’s climax represents the iron cage of capitalism.
In his 1905 book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, German social theorist Max Weber introduced the phrase “iron cage” to explain why people remain trapped working for the sake of work and sacrificing their wellbeing to resist predatory capitalism after belief in the divine declined in popularity. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism “analyzes the connections between ascetic Protestant religious beliefs concerning individual salvation and the wrath of a punishing God, rational capitalism, and a strong commitment to work.”[1] In Weber’s view, Puritans believed that “every hour lost is lost to labor for the glory of God.”[2] Each Puritan followed a “fixed calling,” which “provided an ethical justification of the modern specialized division of labor.”[3] Thus, as divine or “ethical justification,” dissipated from modernity, the “iron cage” of capitalism remained. In other words, while faith in the divine decreased in what Weber perceived as the modern world, the spirit of the Protestant ethic persisted through capitalism.
Barely a half-century later, the 1946 Christmas classic film It’s a Wonderful Life illustrated the “iron cage,” albeit unintentionally, because if Clarence never appeared then George Bailey would die in large part due to capitalism. In the movie, Uncle Billy loses two thousand dollars from the bank because George’s brother Harry’s heroism in World War II distracts him, causing Uncle Billy to flaunt Harry’s accomplishments to Mr. Potter, who exploits the mistake by pocketing the cash and suggesting to George that he is “worth more dead than alive.” George almost jumps off a bridge to his death before Clarence jumps in “to save you,” as he subsequently explains to George. If Clarence never saved George, then religion would not be present to soften capitalism’s consequences.
Indeed, George Bailey had stepped up to fill in for his father at the Bailey Building and Loans, sacrificing his original dreams – and at times his finances – to protect fellow residents of Bedford Falls from the human embodiment of predatory capitalism: Mr. Henry Potter. Clarence convinces George to continue living by showing him what life would be like if he “had never been born,” resulting in George crying, “I don’t care what happens to me… Please! I want to live again. I want to live again.” George’s newfound enthusiasm to continue living is only thanks to divine intervention. A supernatural character rescues the protagonist from the deadly iron cage of capitalism.
While contemporary critics debate whether the classic film is capitalist or socialist, this post has argued not only that it is capitalist, but also that capitalism’s role as the “iron cage” in the movie offers a powerful critique, not necessarily for socialism, but against capitalism. Perhaps the History News Network’s claim that “Capra’s ideal America is sexist and racist” helped my thinking transcend the “it’s ours / no, it’s ours” debate. Indeed, racism and sexism are both deeply interwoven into the social fabric of Bedford Falls. Alas, I can think of no better illustration of Weber’s “iron cage” than predatory capitalism chasing George Bailey off the bridge to his death if not for divine intervention saving him.
[1] Kenneth H. Tucker, Jr., Classical Social Theory (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2002) 155.
[2] Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Dover Publications, 2003) 158.
[3] Weber, 163.
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While society looks left and right, attempting to identify the red herrings… the true puppet master sits aloft entertained. George was a capitalist. Potter a capitalist. Transcending either, if we must, should take a look at the history, however unspoken, of true power. Try constituents of the helix firm.