Park Avenue
Charles Nguyen
English 11H P2
Mrs. C. Johnson
February 13, 2013
Park Avenue Précis
Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream. Dir. Alex Gibney. Perf. Paul Piff, Jeffrey Sachs, Jane Mayer. PBS, 2012. Film. In his documentary, “Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream” (2012), Alex Gibney challenges the notion that the American dream of success can be achieved by hard work. Gibney refutes this belief by discerning the corruption caused by the wealthy, illuminating radical ideologies of notable capitalists, and analyzing how the rich exploit the law. He utilizes these in order to expose the fact that the “extraordinary accumulation of wealth at the top 1% is not just about hard work”, but instead “wealthy interests using the political system to rig the rules” of the government in their favor. Alex Gibney connotes this film to every individual in America to manifest the unjust conducts wealthy plutocrats use to leech funds from the working class, and by doing so he aims to encourage people to help reestablish law and legislation that truly constitute economic equality. The documentary “Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream” is used by Alex Gibney to exhibit that economic mobility is obstructed by the hands of the wealthy. Gibney uses a game of Monopoly to show how even in a game, the rich players “show no concern for the misfortune for the poor players even though they don’t stand a chance.” This game epitomizes what occurs in the real world because the poor truly have no influence on laws and could not buy any of the land currently owned. Policies that favored the lower and middle classes are nonexistent because billions of dollars are put into lobbyist that basically are writing laws. These laws only favor the aristocrats that hired them, proving the bias of lobbying. The lower and middle classes are forced to pay higher income tax rates than the capitalists, yet they do not have any input into the incorporation of the tax.
English 11H P2
Mrs. C. Johnson
February 13, 2013
Park Avenue Précis
Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream. Dir. Alex Gibney. Perf. Paul Piff, Jeffrey Sachs, Jane Mayer. PBS, 2012. Film. In his documentary, “Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream” (2012), Alex Gibney challenges the notion that the American dream of success can be achieved by hard work. Gibney refutes this belief by discerning the corruption caused by the wealthy, illuminating radical ideologies of notable capitalists, and analyzing how the rich exploit the law. He utilizes these in order to expose the fact that the “extraordinary accumulation of wealth at the top 1% is not just about hard work”, but instead “wealthy interests using the political system to rig the rules” of the government in their favor. Alex Gibney connotes this film to every individual in America to manifest the unjust conducts wealthy plutocrats use to leech funds from the working class, and by doing so he aims to encourage people to help reestablish law and legislation that truly constitute economic equality. The documentary “Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream” is used by Alex Gibney to exhibit that economic mobility is obstructed by the hands of the wealthy. Gibney uses a game of Monopoly to show how even in a game, the rich players “show no concern for the misfortune for the poor players even though they don’t stand a chance.” This game epitomizes what occurs in the real world because the poor truly have no influence on laws and could not buy any of the land currently owned. Policies that favored the lower and middle classes are nonexistent because billions of dollars are put into lobbyist that basically are writing laws. These laws only favor the aristocrats that hired them, proving the bias of lobbying. The lower and middle classes are forced to pay higher income tax rates than the capitalists, yet they do not have any input into the incorporation of the tax.