Ayn Rand Hated ‘It’s A Wonderful Life.’ That Doesn’t Make George Bailey A Socialist.
Let’s not get carried away here.
When I was a kid, It’s A Wonderful Life was omnipresent during the holiday season. The film had lapsed into the public domain, which meant that TV stations could fill their schedules with the Frank Capra classic without seeking permission or paying royalties. The 1987 Christmas Cheers episode — aptly titled “Christmas Cheers” — poked fun at the seemingly ceaseless airings of the film over the holidays. Woody tells Carla, “From now until New Year’s on Channel 13, It’s A Wonderful Month.” (Watch below.)
NBC purchased the exclusive televisions rights to It’s A Wonderful Life in 1994. I think that’s probably around the first time I’d seen the entire film from start to finish. Previously, you’d inevitably catch the famous climax — a sort of pre-Twilight Zone episode of its own — while flipping through the channels. Once It’s A Wonderful Life became an event, it was easier to miss altogether. (It’s 131 minutes long, so quite a time investment.)
This year, though, I noticed a lot more conversation about It’s A Wonderful Life, as if more people than ever had newly discovered the film. (Bell, Book, and Candle remains my preferred Christmas movie starring Jimmy Stewart.)
Comedian Kate Willett posted on Christmas Eve, “Rewatched ‘Its a Wonderful Life’ for the first time as an adult and wow socialist AF.” The socialist interpretation is not without precedent. Released in December 1946, It’s A Wonderful Life was viewed with some suspicion from the right, even though Jimmy Stewart, the film’s star, was a staunch conservative Republican — a sharp contrast to his friend Henry Fonda, a liberal Democrat. Director Frank Capra was also a New Deal-opposing Republican.
Nonetheless, during the early days of the Cold War, the FBI considered It’s A Wonderful Life communist propaganda — a bizarre misread of the film. The FBI thought the film was an attack on the upper classes and referred the film to the House Un-American Activities Committee. The FBI specifically targeted husband-and-wife screenwriting team Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, who were believed to have communist ties. Even if this were true, as a writer myself, I can assure you Goodrich and Hackett had far less control over the final product than its director and leading man.
Ayn Rand was predictably a vocal critic of It’s A Wonderful Life, and she’d testified to HUAC about so-called “communist infiltration” in Hollywood. Rand would literally write the book on the virtue of selfishness. She couldn’t comprehend any rational person acting out of anything but their own self-interest. Thus, she believed true capitalism could only be predatory, so George Bailey was a self-sacrificing chump and Mr. Potter (Lionel Barrymore) was the film’s unjustly maligned hero. Rand would’ve loved Pottersville. (Mr. Potter is yet another villain whose vanity demands he slap his name on everything.)
Modern viewers who label It’s A Wonderful Life “socialist AF” actually agree with Ayn Rand. There is no such thing as benign capitalism, so George Bailey’s lifelong efforts to elevate the working class and protect his community from Mr. Potter’s malicious greed are inherently socialist. Robert Reich, among many others, have singled out this particular confrontation between George and Mr. Potter. (Watch below.)
GEORGE: You, you said that they — What’d you say just a minute ago? They had to wait and save their money before they even thought of a decent home. Wait? Wait for what?! Until their children grow up and leave them? Until they’re so old and broken-down that —You know how long it takes a workin’ man to save five thousand dollars? Just remember this, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you’re talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community. Well, is it too much to have them work and pay and live and die in a couple of decent rooms and a bath? Anyway, my father didn’t think so. People were human beings to him, but to you, a warped, frustrated old man, they’re cattle. Well, in my book he died a much richer man than you’ll ever be.
POTTER: I’m not interested in your book. I’m talkin’ about the Building & Loan.
GEORGE: I know very well what you’re talking about. You’re talking about something you can’t get your fingers on, and it’s galling you. That’s what you’re talking about, I know. Well, I’ve said too much. I … you’re ... the Board here. You do what you want with this thing. There’s just one thing more, though. This town needs this measly one-horse institution if only to have some place where people can come without crawling to Potter.
George Bailey is not a socialist, though. He’s a capitalist to his core. Socialism is characterized by public ownership of key industries and resources, not private individuals. George’s family runs the local Building & Loan in Bedford Falls. His father, Peter Bailey, started what George calls a “cheap, penny-ante” operation. George credits his father with helping reduce wealth disparity while simultaneously acknowledging that this made him a lousy businessman.
“Neither you nor anybody else can say anything against his character, because his whole life was … why, in the 25 years since he and Uncle Billy started this thing, he never once thought of himself. Isn’t that right, Uncle Billy? He didn’t save enough money to send Harry to school, let alone me. But he did help a few people get outta your slums, Mr. Potter. And what’s wrong with that? Why, here, you’re all businessmen here. Don’t it make them better citizens? Doesn’t it make them better customers?”
Both Peter and George Bailey lived in service of other people, a concept Ayn Rand found repulsive (she wasn’t a pleasant person). She’d argue that if George had prioritized himself, he would’ve benefitted the entire world not just his friends and family in Bedford Falls. With his intelligence and ambition unchecked by sentimental weakness, he could’ve grown wealthier and more powerful than Mr. Potter. (After all, the nightmarish Pottersville exists in an alternate reality where George Bailey was never born, not one where he lived but made different choices.)
Rand (and most socialists) would disagree, but I think it is possible for an honest, selfless capitalist to exist, even if our current economy doesn’t exactly encourage such behavior. George and Peter Bailey’s nobility doesn’t make them socialists, and if it did, the Building & Loan is hardly a model of a functioning socialist economy. It’s constantly running on fumes.
George unwillingly replaces his late father because that’s the only way the Building & Loan can remain open. His Uncle Billy (Thomas Mitchell) is senile on his worst day and an idiot on his best. A socialist economy operates under collective control — the community and government makes decisions about production and resources. A competent socialist government would’ve put Uncle Billy in an assisted living facility and not anywhere near real money.
It’s A Wonderful Life promotes the Great Man Myth, and I suppose that’s something modern socialists tend to embrace. A decade after Bernie Sanders’s first presidential run, many of his supporters still insist that if he’d have won the Democratic primary he could have single-handedly prevented America from becoming Trumpville. There is little acknowledgement of the vast scope and complexities of government. One man (and woman!) can make a difference, but they can’t single-handedly flip a switch and make everything wonderful.
When there’s a run on the bank shortly before George and Mary Bailey’s (Donna Reed) honeymoon, they use their own money to keep the bank solvent. That’s benevolent capitalism. It’s also somewhat damning of socialism, because the Building & Loan’s easily panicked depositors demanded all their money at once. It required the “great man” to pacify the collective, which only took a slight push to almost become a Randian mob. (Watch below.)
It’s A Wonderful Life depicts George Bailey as the noble prince in a royal family, stepping up to do what no one else can. A sense of duty drives George, who more closely resembles Queen Elizabeth in The Crown than Che Guevara. This isn’t a film about socialism, nor is A Christmas Carol or White Christmas — all of which are about people helping others in need but without government intervention. Collective action might ensure a happy ending, but it’s still market driven. George’s brother Harry calls him the “richest man in town,” and it’s that immeasurable wealth that saves him, not a government bailout.
George Bailey and Ayn Rand represent opposite moral universes, and It’s a Wonderful Life makes that contrast impossible to miss. Bailey’s worth is measured not by what he accumulates or conquers, but by the quiet, unglamorous sacrifices he makes for others—sacrifices that, in Rand’s worldview, would register as failure. Where Rand elevates the sovereign individual who owes nothing and bends to no one, Bailey is defined by obligation, loyalty, and restraint. He repeatedly gives up his own dreams not because he’s coerced, but because he understands that a life embedded in community has value beyond personal ambition. Rand would see that as a tragedy of wasted potential; the film insists it is the very definition of success. That tension is the point: It’s a Wonderful Life isn’t arguing against capitalism so much as it’s arguing against the idea that human worth can be reduced to self-interest alone—and that is precisely why Rand recoiled from it.
Almost off topic, but my favorite line about how inescapable this film once was is in the animated Batman "Christmas With the Joker." Robin is watching it, and he's surprised Batman never saw it: "I couldn't get past the title."