Editorial: What Texas can learn from George Bailey's 'Wonderful Life'
the golly gee insights of George Bailey in “It’s a Wonderful Life” have provided viewers with a beloved and deeply American Christmas parable. After — spoiler alert — facing financial ruin and jail time, George considers his life insurance payout and suicide as a way to save his family before realizing, with the aid of his jolly guardian angel, that his life — wife, kids, house and many friends — is worth living still.
Hilariously, when Saturday Night Live revisited the film in 1986, comedians spoofed the ending that our not-so-better angels secretly wanted: the town gathering around to beat up Henry F. Potter, the morally bankrupt banker who gobbles up the town piece by piece save for George's building-and-loan business and who, after happening upon the missing funds, thinks he’s finally found a way to take George down by calling the police.
George’s business promotes capitalism, just a gentler form, optimized not just for profit but for the kinds of social outcomes that make a strong society: stable families, financial mobility, the ability to take risks and start small businesses, savings to send kids to college, etc. The friends, family and community that are so loved in the film depend, in part, on an economic system that support these connections.
While Texas does celebrate opportunity and seems to draw people who take those risks to innovate and build, often the downside is not considered: the corners that are cut, the workers whose health and safety aren't prioritized, the environmental protections that are waived away, the tax structure that doesn't support educating our leaders of tomorrow.
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