Old movies and new ones often turn on the theme of corruption. For generations, viewers have enjoyed discovering the ins and outs of a gang of people who are up to no good, financially and otherwise.
It’s always a shock to see the way the insiders treat each other so brutally, and how they lie, cheat, and steal to get their way. It’s especially satisfying when they get caught in the end.
Countless movies in the old days followed this basic plot.
One of my favorites is the American classic “On the Waterfront” (1954) with Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, and Karl Malden. It’s the story of a rough gang of thugs that has taken control of a longshoreman’s union. They pillage the workers for dues and make paychecks contingent on loyalty.
For years, everyone in the union is told to be “D&D” or deaf and dumb, never saying a word to the authorities for fear of bad outcomes. As the corruption gets worse, the tactics of enforcement grow more violent. New Jersey kicks off a crime commission to look into the problem with the focus on a murder. A local priest plays a role in convincing a worker who is tight with the gang to rat on the bad guys.
It all turns out well in the end, even if Brando gets badly beaten up. The bad guys are overturned and the workers get their union back. The movie is a brilliant reflection of a culture at the time: yes, there are imperfections but we are making great progress to root out the bad and replace it with the good, thanks to moral leadership and courage.
But notice how the plot absolutely depends on the existence of a not-corrupt higher power. That’s almost always the case in the old movies. Once the authorities find out that something bad is happening, they work to clean it up. Their success turns on the ethical tenacity of one insider who is willing to stand up for what is right. To make that courage operational, you need means of redress that are not part of the problem.
That’s all great but we have a different problem in our own time. The higher powers on which we depend for redress are themselves part of the issue. This truly came home to me lately with the Supreme Court hearing for Murthy v. Missouri, which documented how dozens of federal agencies worked with social media companies, directly and indirectly, to censor free speech.
