It's A Wonderful Link
There's some evidence, though, that the balance was shifting in George's favour. Potter offers George a job because one of Potter's rent collectors tells him he "can't afford to ignore" George's housing development.
But during the second half of the film--George's stumble through Pottersville--we see that without competition from George, Mr. Potter would have attracted all the financial links. Barabasi calls this the winner-take-all scenario. In essence, Mr. Potter would've become the Microsoft of Bedford Falls.
(It's also at this point that the story starts to unravel. Clarence shows George what would happen if he'd never been born, but not what would happen if he jumped off the bridge. Sure, it was a wonderful life. Will it continue to be a wonderful life? Who knows.)
One of my long-standing quibbles with It's A Wonderful Life is that George is the beneficiary of divine intervention when if anyone needs salvation it's the unconscionable Mr. Potter. (His "sentimental hogwash" is a nice parallel to Scrooge's "bah humbug.") One of the film's few sour notes is that Potter's villainy goes undiscovered and unpunished.
But from a network perspective, saving George makes perfect sense: he's the hub on which Bedford Falls depends. Remove George and you end up with Pottersville.
