What George reluctantly ran was more akin to a local credit union. Potter ran the big evil bank trying to destroy the local community credit union that considered circumstances and community standing of borrowers, because Potter’s bank was cold, ruthless, opportunistic and sociopathic just like every for profit bank in America today.

George’s Building & Loan made no one including its owner anything resembling rich, that wasn’t what it was for. It demonstrates that financial institutions don’t have to be evil, they choose to be. Even in 1946, George Bailey’s Building and loan was portrayed as a dying breed of community based financial institutions being killed by greedy profiteers who saw the profit potential in destroying humane lending institutions not solely driven by maximizing return as the only point.

Mr. Potter kept coming to George like the devil with a deal, telling him HE and his family could live large, he just had to sell out his community. He basically said no and fuck you for asking every time. Our values today are so poisoned that I think the American that wouldn’t take that deal, the modern American Dream, would be few and far between. Because the Mr. Potters of the world won, we were taught that COMMUNity was evil, because community could stand against reckless profiteering, and once did.

The message was that living a life caring about others makes you valuable to people in your community, in ways money can’t buy, while living a life of greed leaves you wealthy and without so much as a true friend in the world.

The thesis of the movie: https://youtu.be/O4ne13Zft9Q?si=3K1OTNjWT9FtCiZ9