Increasing and accumulating money – that is the core of a game of “Monopoly”. A 3sat documentary shows what the perhaps most capitalistic of all games has in common with reality and what differences there are.
Berlin – It can’t be that easy to create with money, can it ?! “I click on save,” says the bank advisor. “And with that the creation of money has been carried out.”
A simple click at the end of a consultation about a loan to buy a home – and the balance sheet volume has grown by a six-figure amount? That’s why thousands upon thousands of people study economics, do apprenticeships at banks, insurance companies, in companies?
3sat showed on Monday evening that the connections between economic growth, debt and asset concentration are a bit more complex. However, the topic is anything but light fare, 10:25 p.m. is not a digestive start time. But Carmen Losmann tries to explain neoliberal financial and economic policy in her documentation “Oeconomia” in the most layman’s way.
She succeeds on the one hand because she names her questions – and thus possibly also those of many viewers by name: What are the rules of the game in this system? Is Profit the Compelling Driving Force? How can everyone make a profit at the same time? And how can permanent growth work on a finite planet?
On the other hand, Losmann shows some things using graphics. Also because the contact person then refused one or the other long-promised conversation. Or set up strict rules about what can be talked about and for how long. Even if they then get confused or supposedly clarify behind the scenes with press officers what they want to say and how, the film shows it very transparently.
Losmann met leading figures from the European Central Bank, BMW and Allianz, for example. They talk about margins, bonds and stocks, returns, book money and money creation. It’s like a one and a half hour crash course through business and economics. The surprising and at the same time somewhat frightening: Even the experts have problems here and there answering the questions or explaining things in an understandable way. The answers: collected, evasive. Relationships are too complex.
The film therefore does not fully explain how the system works. Some questions will remain unanswered by the audience, maybe the documentary will make you shake your head. With handy examples, however, Losmann presents the essential processes and names the resulting consequences and problems. The working methods are shown in given consultations or team meetings as well as in real question and answer sessions. At times quite long shots and a lot of split frames drag the film a bit.
So if you really turn on the television late in the evening and don’t click into the media library, you should make sure that you are still halfway focused. Because the matter itself is complicated. And the film not only scratches the surface, but penetrates deeper. Even if an essential finding could be the differences between reality and the supposedly most capitalist of all games – “Monopoly”. dpa
