I love “It’s a Wonderful Life” primarily for its messages about community and greed, as you’ve described so well.
It shows how one person can make a difference, no matter how futile it might seem at times. And, how a different person can ruin most people’s lives.
As a life-long democratic socialist (probably started with my belief in Santa Claus, who - in my child mind - made life a little more fair for poor people), I see Potter’s excessive greed and sociopathy as destructive. It was terrible for his community and for himself (just ask Scrooge’s ghosts).
Unfortunately, this movie’s message is relevant today because we live in another era of unharnessed greed where a tiny percentage of the people of this nation own more wealth than almost everyone else. And what are they doing with their wealth? Well, let’s just say it’s not to improve this nation or the world in any substantive way. They are using it to amass more wealth in a race to become the world’s first trillionaire; they are using it to destroy middle class home ownership, the environment, small farms, and rural businesses through the use of AI, which has the capability of giving people endless mental masturbation but lacks - at least so far - any lasting utility or capability of making the average “George’s” life any better.
What does make our lives better? Once upon a time, we would ask scientists because both our government and most citizens trusted them. I still believe in science and evidence-based public policy, so here’s what science says about improving the lives of humans: community, in-person and regular interactions with other humans, friendship, companionship, and capability of living with one’s basic needs met.
All of these things are being unraveled by technology that separates us and isolates us and impoverishes us. If more people are paying attention to “It’s a Wonderful Live” in 2025, it’s because the movie shows us what we are fast becoming in the Trump era: impoverished forever renters in Pottersville.
"Everything I hate is communism/socialism" has a long history.
There is no government to speak of in "It's a Wonderful Life." Not visibly anyway. There is a library, after all, and there must be an institution that has a monopoly on violence that Mr. Potter can corrupt and control with his wealth in the alternate universe. Perhaps it is the library that one objects to as socialist.
No, Bailey is, at heart, kind. Whether he's genuinely kind or kind out of social pressures and expectations can be debated, I suppose. But he's kind.
And I suppose in the real world, that would make him foolish. Leaving all of that opportunity to hock his customers BitCoin or charge exorbitant fees on overdrafts, checking and savings accounts, and not issuing usurious lines of credit, or invest his customer's money in junk, hire lobbyists, and demand government bailouts when it all explodes. He would be a fool to not bribe Supreme Court justices or pay for an old man's vanity ballroom to increase his ability to make money.
Perhaps we need a remake with an alternate universe where George is every bit the bastard he can be and ends with a town and city named after him which will no doubt be a comfort to him as he lies on the sidewalk bleeding out after an angry young man shoots him for taking his mother's home.
This is a lot of food for thought. And yes I agree, it is possible to have selfless capitalists. I think they exist, they would be the types to say, "I have enough" versus "I deserve to have all the money that has ever existed, more than anyone else."
I watched It's a Wonderful Life - among my favorite movies - in its entirety last night. Donald Trump - I mean Mr. Potter - should but doesn't get his comeuppance (something that happened in SNL). George is the man - though financially not wealthy - the benevolent Libertarians (they still point to Carnegie and the libraries from the 1800s) are supposed to be. Not that George is one. He's also not a socialist, that misunderstood term. He's me, and many people, someone who believes that helping everyone lifts society. And this is proven in so many places. Including here during and after FDR, that the propaganda that makes people not believe it is MASSIVE. The same people who root for George in the movie root against him in real life.
If the world were full of George Baileys and Scrooges (post-Xmas), we wouldn’t need socialism. Nor would we need religion telling us to be good to each other. And we wouldn’t need “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Carol” to remind us we can be better than this.
You make some great points. What Ayn Rand and others of her ilk don't understand - the elevation of selfishness created socialism. Selfish capitalism is nothing but a cash grab, and those practicing it don't care about the future, nor about others. They don't want regulations because they think that they are a burden (sometimes they are), rather than seeing regulations as protecting them and their investments (mostly they are). When things get too much out of whack, something has to give, and socialism like that practiced in Europe is the answer to unregulated, selfish capitalism. I am tired of people thinking that capitalism is good, and that socialism and communism are bad. As you pointed out, they are neither, they just ARE. It's how they are administered that matters, and George Bailey's capitalism is one administered well, while Mr. Potter's capitalism is one administered poorly.
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."
You've crystalized some thoughts I've had about "The Human Condition" trilogy. Part One, "No Greater Love" from 1959 is the anti-"It's A Wonderful Life."
The series eviscerates Imperial Japanese society from top to bottom. When the Japanese military, drunk on Samurai stories, rampaged through Asia, the capitalists were completely on board. They were looking for any edge when it came to "opening new markets." Hell, if it worked for Commodore Perry and his Black Ships, why shouldn't it work for The Emperor's loyal servants?
This version of George Bailey is an entry level manager for a mining concern in occupied Manchuria. Young and ambitious, he's picked up a little Marxism along with his Business Administration degree. His usefulness to the machine earns him a nice draft deferment. The mine he's sent to help manage is worked by prisoners and conscripted laborers. In short, slaves.
Our hero has a novel proposal:
Treat the workers with a modicum of mercy, and toss them a few perks. He explains that in the long run the company will get more work out of them. In addition, they won't have to requisition more prisoners every time the work force dies off.
The imperial-industrial machine is too far gone for his radical plan to succeed. Our young striver's efforts only make things worse for everybody, himself included. He gets the attention of the Security Police, who bring him to the barracks for some stress-relieving violence. They decide he's barely worth torturing, so they cut him loose. "Oh by the way, there goes your draft deferment". Then his life takes a turn for the worse.
If Ayn Rand ever saw "The Human Condition" she'd have appreciated it as an excellent cautionary tale. A good tonic for any ambitious executive who might be tempted into viewing the laborers as fellow humans, worthy of respect.
The interesting thing about Rand is that underneath her “selfishness is good” philosophy there is an idea she may have missed (unless she did address it in something I haven’t read)—when you boil it down, isn't every voluntary act a form of “selfishness”? After all if you do something purely for the benefit of someone else, even a total stranger, you’re doing it for some personal reason—morals, makes you feel good, etc. I can think of no example where someone says “I choose to do this freely but I don’t want to do it”.
The issue with her “selfishness is the only good” philosophy is everyone’s concept of what is in their selfish best interest will differ, and where everyone is incentivized against any collective good (or regulating markets, if they find that against their selfish interest) we end up with short term cash grab capitalism leaving everyone worse off. Sort of the other side of the coin from full communism, both to illustrate something in the middle is preferable.
Part of the issue here is everyone has differing definitions of socialism and capitalism. Seems what most liberals (and to some extent conservatives) agree on is a regulated free market and the difference is over how regulated and the nature of the regulation. To say “capitalism is evil” I think gets it wrong—free markets aren’t good or bad, they just “are”, and the question is how to harness the good parts (incentives for doing more than bare subsistence, choice and freedoms) while correcting for the bad parts (moral hazards, bad luck, victims of market forces).
To my mind, if IAWL was “socialist” it wouldn’t stop with Potter being a villain (remember, he wasn’t just a hardened businessman, he stole money, he also wasn’t farsighted enough to cut breaks for his borrowers in the interest of maintaining long term relationships and preserving long term income, he was a shortsighted “cash grab” type of capitalist)—a socialist message would have made George himself a failure and only a federal takeover of the banks would have saved the town. The message I got from the movie was “moral actors vs amoral actors in the banking business”.
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.
I love “It’s a Wonderful Life” primarily for its messages about community and greed, as you’ve described so well.
It shows how one person can make a difference, no matter how futile it might seem at times. And, how a different person can ruin most people’s lives.
As a life-long democratic socialist (probably started with my belief in Santa Claus, who - in my child mind - made life a little more fair for poor people), I see Potter’s excessive greed and sociopathy as destructive. It was terrible for his community and for himself (just ask Scrooge’s ghosts).
Unfortunately, this movie’s message is relevant today because we live in another era of unharnessed greed where a tiny percentage of the people of this nation own more wealth than almost everyone else. And what are they doing with their wealth? Well, let’s just say it’s not to improve this nation or the world in any substantive way. They are using it to amass more wealth in a race to become the world’s first trillionaire; they are using it to destroy middle class home ownership, the environment, small farms, and rural businesses through the use of AI, which has the capability of giving people endless mental masturbation but lacks - at least so far - any lasting utility or capability of making the average “George’s” life any better.
What does make our lives better? Once upon a time, we would ask scientists because both our government and most citizens trusted them. I still believe in science and evidence-based public policy, so here’s what science says about improving the lives of humans: community, in-person and regular interactions with other humans, friendship, companionship, and capability of living with one’s basic needs met.
All of these things are being unraveled by technology that separates us and isolates us and impoverishes us. If more people are paying attention to “It’s a Wonderful Live” in 2025, it’s because the movie shows us what we are fast becoming in the Trump era: impoverished forever renters in Pottersville.
"Mr. Potter was the unjustly maligned hero."
I think someone writes that column almost every year.
"Everything I hate is communism/socialism" has a long history.
There is no government to speak of in "It's a Wonderful Life." Not visibly anyway. There is a library, after all, and there must be an institution that has a monopoly on violence that Mr. Potter can corrupt and control with his wealth in the alternate universe. Perhaps it is the library that one objects to as socialist.
No, Bailey is, at heart, kind. Whether he's genuinely kind or kind out of social pressures and expectations can be debated, I suppose. But he's kind.
And I suppose in the real world, that would make him foolish. Leaving all of that opportunity to hock his customers BitCoin or charge exorbitant fees on overdrafts, checking and savings accounts, and not issuing usurious lines of credit, or invest his customer's money in junk, hire lobbyists, and demand government bailouts when it all explodes. He would be a fool to not bribe Supreme Court justices or pay for an old man's vanity ballroom to increase his ability to make money.
Perhaps we need a remake with an alternate universe where George is every bit the bastard he can be and ends with a town and city named after him which will no doubt be a comfort to him as he lies on the sidewalk bleeding out after an angry young man shoots him for taking his mother's home.
This is a lot of food for thought. And yes I agree, it is possible to have selfless capitalists. I think they exist, they would be the types to say, "I have enough" versus "I deserve to have all the money that has ever existed, more than anyone else."
I watched It's a Wonderful Life - among my favorite movies - in its entirety last night. Donald Trump - I mean Mr. Potter - should but doesn't get his comeuppance (something that happened in SNL). George is the man - though financially not wealthy - the benevolent Libertarians (they still point to Carnegie and the libraries from the 1800s) are supposed to be. Not that George is one. He's also not a socialist, that misunderstood term. He's me, and many people, someone who believes that helping everyone lifts society. And this is proven in so many places. Including here during and after FDR, that the propaganda that makes people not believe it is MASSIVE. The same people who root for George in the movie root against him in real life.
If the world were full of George Baileys and Scrooges (post-Xmas), we wouldn’t need socialism. Nor would we need religion telling us to be good to each other. And we wouldn’t need “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Carol” to remind us we can be better than this.
You said it better and quicker than I did. Bravo!
You make some great points. What Ayn Rand and others of her ilk don't understand - the elevation of selfishness created socialism. Selfish capitalism is nothing but a cash grab, and those practicing it don't care about the future, nor about others. They don't want regulations because they think that they are a burden (sometimes they are), rather than seeing regulations as protecting them and their investments (mostly they are). When things get too much out of whack, something has to give, and socialism like that practiced in Europe is the answer to unregulated, selfish capitalism. I am tired of people thinking that capitalism is good, and that socialism and communism are bad. As you pointed out, they are neither, they just ARE. It's how they are administered that matters, and George Bailey's capitalism is one administered well, while Mr. Potter's capitalism is one administered poorly.
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."
You've crystalized some thoughts I've had about "The Human Condition" trilogy. Part One, "No Greater Love" from 1959 is the anti-"It's A Wonderful Life."
The series eviscerates Imperial Japanese society from top to bottom. When the Japanese military, drunk on Samurai stories, rampaged through Asia, the capitalists were completely on board. They were looking for any edge when it came to "opening new markets." Hell, if it worked for Commodore Perry and his Black Ships, why shouldn't it work for The Emperor's loyal servants?
This version of George Bailey is an entry level manager for a mining concern in occupied Manchuria. Young and ambitious, he's picked up a little Marxism along with his Business Administration degree. His usefulness to the machine earns him a nice draft deferment. The mine he's sent to help manage is worked by prisoners and conscripted laborers. In short, slaves.
Our hero has a novel proposal:
Treat the workers with a modicum of mercy, and toss them a few perks. He explains that in the long run the company will get more work out of them. In addition, they won't have to requisition more prisoners every time the work force dies off.
The imperial-industrial machine is too far gone for his radical plan to succeed. Our young striver's efforts only make things worse for everybody, himself included. He gets the attention of the Security Police, who bring him to the barracks for some stress-relieving violence. They decide he's barely worth torturing, so they cut him loose. "Oh by the way, there goes your draft deferment". Then his life takes a turn for the worse.
If Ayn Rand ever saw "The Human Condition" she'd have appreciated it as an excellent cautionary tale. A good tonic for any ambitious executive who might be tempted into viewing the laborers as fellow humans, worthy of respect.
The interesting thing about Rand is that underneath her “selfishness is good” philosophy there is an idea she may have missed (unless she did address it in something I haven’t read)—when you boil it down, isn't every voluntary act a form of “selfishness”? After all if you do something purely for the benefit of someone else, even a total stranger, you’re doing it for some personal reason—morals, makes you feel good, etc. I can think of no example where someone says “I choose to do this freely but I don’t want to do it”.
The issue with her “selfishness is the only good” philosophy is everyone’s concept of what is in their selfish best interest will differ, and where everyone is incentivized against any collective good (or regulating markets, if they find that against their selfish interest) we end up with short term cash grab capitalism leaving everyone worse off. Sort of the other side of the coin from full communism, both to illustrate something in the middle is preferable.
Part of the issue here is everyone has differing definitions of socialism and capitalism. Seems what most liberals (and to some extent conservatives) agree on is a regulated free market and the difference is over how regulated and the nature of the regulation. To say “capitalism is evil” I think gets it wrong—free markets aren’t good or bad, they just “are”, and the question is how to harness the good parts (incentives for doing more than bare subsistence, choice and freedoms) while correcting for the bad parts (moral hazards, bad luck, victims of market forces).
To my mind, if IAWL was “socialist” it wouldn’t stop with Potter being a villain (remember, he wasn’t just a hardened businessman, he stole money, he also wasn’t farsighted enough to cut breaks for his borrowers in the interest of maintaining long term relationships and preserving long term income, he was a shortsighted “cash grab” type of capitalist)—a socialist message would have made George himself a failure and only a federal takeover of the banks would have saved the town. The message I got from the movie was “moral actors vs amoral actors in the banking business”.
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.
My compliments on the article. 👏