Men with Guns

Men with Guns

Men With Guns is not so much a film about economic processes as it is a film about the effects of a certain economic system - feudalism. It is more a film about cultural and political processes than anything else, a film that deals in depth with the grave consequences of a country in Central or South America whose Indians are subjects to the knights - the “men with guns” - who control and terrorize their existence.

Cultural processes can be defined as the creation, or transfer, of knowledge. It is the way in which the rules of an economic system are communicated. In Men with Guns, the rules of the feudal economic system are translated through the men themselves. The “sugar people” or the “corn people” know their place in society because the army or the guerrillas tell them what it is through force. Every Indian that the doctor meets tells him that they are subject to the men with guns, and that they are in control. As long as one has access to a gun, then that individual becomes a knight, no longer a feudal serf, and it does not matter if that person has began life as a white person or an Indian.

Because the “men with guns” happen to be the army, the army acts as feudal knights, forcing the serfs to live in extreme poverty and fear of death, torturing who they like with no consequences, and moving entire villages. They are able to do this because of the political system in the rural part of the country. Political processes can be defined as the rules, or laws if they are established by a legitimate government, that are enforced within a political system. In the feudal system in “Men with Guns,” the rules are made by the army. In the feudal system, the rules are made legitimate purely through the ownership of firearms. It appears as though the people are helpless politically because the political system is the army.

There is a feeling in the movie that two different political systems exist within the country, and that most definitely two different economic systems are present. The country can be split into two different cultures - the city and the rural areas. The city operates much like that of any other Western city, and the doctor appears to live with relative freedom and economic prosperity.