The Corporation

Joel Bakan, who served as a clerk for Chief Justice Brian Dickson and advocated for human rights against governments, now takes aim at corporations in this documentary. On the way he gets a little help from friends like Naomi Klein and Michael Moore. The stuff exposed in the final product can be shocking and hits home even if the presentation is fairly one-sided. From stuff little-known like businessmen trying to overthrow Franklin Roosevelt and aiding Nazi death camps, to a reminder of Kathy Lee Gifford's sweatshops. It questions the ethics of applying patents on life and rain water. This is a story that needs to be heard, even if it needs to be balanced.

I first saw most of the movie as part of a sociology course. We considered the concept of a corporation as a person, and how if it were a person it can fit the definition of a psychopath. While it may sound extreme to apply that label to men running businesses, sadly there is some truth to it. Even if this movie doesn't convince me corporations should be banned, it demonstrates why they should not have absolute power and personhood. The stuff about Bolivia having a revolt shows people being pushed can push back, and raises questions of how we may see more of that which is alarming from a security perspective. All of this is helped by use of metaphors and pop culture and the calm, female voice of the narrator. Everyone shaping a national economy should see this movie.

So we're getting used to antibiotics because of Corporate America's dairies pumping their sick cattle full of the stuff. I knew it intellectually but never realized it so viscerally as I did while watching these cows with their udders painfully distended and the pus coming out of them. Like a little pus with your milk? You're getting it.

so it's onto soy milk or organic milk for me, from now on. That is but one of the life-changing experiences I had watching this movie. Of course, I already knew what tentacles Corporate America has around every area of our government including the media, but this movie just punched it up.

It should make you angry. If not, your conscience has long been stilled by your big screen TV, your gas-guzzling SUV or your stock options. Probably won't show in most of your towns....too much of a threat to the corporations that are shown up in this show. Monsanto? Won't be buying any of their products anytime soon, and I already boycott Walmark, Penney's and the ubiquitous Barbie Doll. Pretty soon, I'll be eating nothing buy my own garden's products....a good idea, no? See the movie: find out how you're being shilled. You might even decide to take back your government from the corporations writing policy for Cheney and other Congressional prostitutes.

Where once we used to shop at our local shop and have bread and milk delivered by the local milkman from the local farms, now we shop in a supermarket that is multinational, eat at fast food restaurants that are everywhere and wear clothes made in the third world by those living in sweatshops. This documentary looks at the Corporation as if it was a person (something that US law says it basically is), charting its development, its character and the effects the concept of profit driven corporations has had on the world we live in.

First of all let me just say that I am fairly liberal in some regards but not to the degree as many of the audience I saw this with, many of whom could not signposted themselves anti-capitalist students if they'd actually carried signs. I should also own up and say that I currently work for an American corporation; in fact one of those who's logo flashes up in the section on the top 50 criminal companies (although I did work for an environmental charity prior to this so that gives you some idea of my muddled politics!). Having read No Logo, Fast Food Nation, seen Michael Moore films and, hey, actually used my own eyes and brain, it came as no surprise to me that the idea of a business that considers no growth to equal failing and must constantly earn more and more to be a bad thing. Nor was I surprised by the sweatshops or pollution that occurs. Neither would any of this be a surprise to the majority of the already tuned-in audience and wisely the film doesn't just rant at us about how terrible things are; instead it takes a fairly compelling look at the wider problems associated with this model. It is consistently interesting, compelling and, sadly, all a bit depressing.

The film's strength is that it never gets personal or preachy. The film allows the CEOs to get a fair chance to present their opinions and it never demonises any of them, the vast majority of them actually come off as very nice guys who seem to genuinely want to be ethical, environmental etc. Not only does this give the film a balanced feel (a refreshing change from Moore's axe-grinding and sermonising) but it also makes the subject more scary – it would be better if the system could be down to careless, evil men but it isn't; it is the system that is the problem and no one person is to blame. The structure of the film jumps around a lot and I'm not sure it entirely works because it is pretty overwhelming although I suppose it was always going to be hard to frame such a large, complex topic – just look at the anti-capitalist protests to get an idea of the multi-issue argument.

The film is not perfect of course and, looking around the audience after the film, it is evident that this film has mostly played to converted rather than winning new converts in the main. Part of this is how overwhelming it is but also the fact that it does run pretty long as well – not a problem once you're into it but perhaps a bit of a turnoff for those not seeking it out. Secondly the lack of answers is also a bit of a problem. I guess I preferred the ending to the alternative of being told to eat mung beans and make our own clothes but it is easy to feel that we just have to accept what we are being told is bad. For me personally this wasn't a massive problem because I do hold a position where I have to work to improve the sustainability of a small part of a big corporation so I left rather hopeful and looking forward to work the next day – but for many viewers I can understand why it feels like a dead end.

Overall though, this is a very good film that allows everyone a fairly balanced crack at the whip even if its agenda and politics are obvious from the start. It avoids demonising, simplifying and making it personal and it is stronger and more engaging as a result. It provides no easy answers but it does provide challenges and plenty to think about with all the talking heads making valid points for all sides and perhaps showing that the answers do lie in the middle – not the extremes of money chasing shareholders or the noisy and brightly dressed street protesters. Regardless of your politics it is worth seeing this film and it deserves to be seen by as wide an audience as lesser documentaries have been (and yes Michael Moore, I'm talking about you).

This extraordinary documentary is based on the book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power (2004) by law professor Joel Bakan (see my review at Amazon). Bakan's thesis is that the corporation is a psychopathic entity.

In his book he notes that the modern corporation is "singularly self-interested and unable to feel genuine concern for others in any context." (p. 56) He adds that the corporation's sole reason for being is to enhance the profits and power of the corporation. He shows by citing court cases that it is the duty of management to make money and that any compromise with that duty is dereliction of duty.

Directors Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott bring these points and a slew of others to cinematic life through interviews, archival footage, and a fine narrative written by Achbar and Harold Crooks. The interviews cover a wide spectrum of opinion, from Michael Moore and Noam Chomsky on the left, to Nobel Prize winning economist Milton Friedman on the right. Friedman is heard to agree with Bakan that the corporation's duty is to its stockholders and that anything that deviates from that duty is irresponsible.

What emerges is a view of the corporation as an entity working both for and against human welfare. Designed to turn labor and raw materials efficiently into goods and services and to thereby raise our standard of living, it has been a very effective tool for humans to use. On the other hand, because it is blind to anything but its own welfare, the corporation uses humans and the resources of the planet in ways that can be and often are detrimental to people and the environment. Corporations, to put it bluntly, foul the environment with their wastes and will not clean up unless forced to.

An interesting technique that Achbar and Abbott use is to go down the list of behaviors cited in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders that identify the psychopathic personality and show how the corporation has all of those behaviors including a criminal disregard for the welfare and feelings of others and a complete absence of guilt. Indeed corporations feel no compunction when they break the law. Their only concern is whether breaking the law is cost-effective. The result is a nearly constant bending and breaking of the law. They pay the fine and then break the law again. The corporation, after all, has no conscience and feels no remorse.

Bakan notes that "corporations are designed to externalize their costs." The corporation is "deliberately programmed, indeed legally compelled, to externalize costs without regard for the harm it may cause to people, communities, and the natural environment. Every cost it can unload onto someone else is a benefit to itself, a direct route to profit." (pp. 72-73) We are shown how rivers are polluted, environments destroyed and people placed into something close to servitude by the corporation's insatiable lust to profit.

The answer to this, as presented in the film, is to make corporations pay for their pollution. What many people are proposing is the creation of bills or certificates that would allow the barer "the right to pollute." The cost of these bills would reflect the societal and environmental costs of the pollution. This sounds scary, but what it would do is make those who pollute pay for their pollution instead of having the costs be externalized as they are now. Consequently, to protect their bottom line, corporations would pollute less.

Another problem with the corporation as emphasized in the film is that the corporate structure is essentially despotic. It is not a democracy or anything close. The owners hire officers to exercise control over everyone who works for the corporation. This is in direct contrast to democratic governments whose officers are elected and who are subject to the checks and balances of a constitutional government with shared powers. It is true that if you are a shareholder of a corporation you may be able to indirectly vote for the CEO. However, such a "democracy" is a democracy of capital in which the electoral power is inequitably distributed. Some people have hundreds of millions of votes. How many does the average shareholder have? Bakan, Achbar and Abbott play fair, and give both sides of the case--although that is not to say that the weight of evidence or sentiment is equally distributed. After all, who's in favor of pollution or the destruction of the environment? The pathological corporation doesn't care about such things, but its officers should. Some do, but feel constrained by their fiduciary duty to their stockholders. Consequently it is our responsibility as the electorate to get our government to make the corporation socially and morally responsible. The way to do that is make the fines for breaking the law large enough to change corporate behavior. Furthermore--and this is essential--make management responsible--criminally if necessary--for the actions of the corporation.

This is absolutely one of the most interesting, most compelling, and, yes, entertaining documentaries that I have ever seen. But beware of some graphic footage.

(Note: Over 500 of my movie reviews are now available in my book "Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote!" Get it at Amazon!)

After a relatively straightforward start exploring the definition of incorporation, this documentary made some fairly meaty punches on its target material.

With the exception of a few sentimental and outdated "the poor people fight back" strands, most of the attacks were well constructed. Beyond simply saying that to a corporation profit is everything, the more difficult case was made: that everything can be turned into a profit. And that includes life, death, and the truth.

The depiction of the Corporation as a psychopath was used to link most of the material. The talking heads were usually on the money, including both Michael "9/11" Moore and Noam "Manafacturing Consent" Chomsky.

But what the film does well was report specific cases that certainly included a few gems. An attempt to privatize water, IBM servicing Nazi accounting, an attempted coup in the US, Fox burying news and of course Monsanto being Monsanto. You couldn't make those guys up.

The attempt to look at alternatives to the worst forms of Capitalism were not so successful. Right wing defenders of profit-at-all-cost use short sentences with single syllable words. The poor want to be rich. We make things you like. We don't care. Much of the left wing however, cannot counter this clarity.

And the last frame had the ebullient Mr Moore telling us to get off the sofa and do something. Yeah, like vote for Bush again?