The Corporation

I just watched the documentary "The Corporation" based on the book "The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Power and Profit" by law professor Joel Bakan. I'm so glad they made a movie version! I'm not sure that's a book I would've picked up, even given my devotion to non-fiction. And yet it presents a truly mind-shifting thesis: that we have afforded corporations the status of a person with all the comensurate rights, yet if you evaluated the corporation through the lens of a person, it would be diagnosed as a psychopath.

Intrigued?

"The Corporation" is a must-see now that it's out on DVD. You will learn a lot while being entertained. Check out the website: www.the corporation.com.

It's a pretty balanced film too. The co-director said she approached every scene with the question "What would my Dad think?" (who's a businessman) -and her effort to have the movie speak to a broad audience shows.

I'm going to host a house party to show the movie sometime this summer - it's that important. If you live in the Seattle area, stay tuned for date and time.

Here's a brief summary of the movie (and book, if you're so inclined):

"One hundred and fifty years ago, the corporation was a relatively insignificant entity. Today, it is a vivid, dramatic and pervasive presence in all our lives. Like the Church, the Monarchy and the Communist Party in other times and places, the corporation is today’s dominant institution. But history humbles dominant institutions. All have been crushed, belittled or absorbed into some new order. The corporation is unlikely to be the first to defy history.

In this complex and highly entertaining documentary, Mark Achbar, co-director of the influential and inventive "Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media," teams up with co-director Jennifer Abbott and writer Joel Bakan to examine the far-reaching repercussions of the corporation’s increasing preeminence.

Based on Bakan’s book The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power, the film is a timely, critical inquiry that invites CEOs, whistle-blowers, brokers, gurus, spies, players, pawns and pundits on a graphic and engaging quest to reveal the corporation’s inner workings, curious history, controversial impacts and possible futures. Featuring illuminating interviews with Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, Howard Zinn and many others, "The Corporation" charts the spectacular rise of an institution aimed at achieving specific economic goals as it also recounts victories against this apparently invincible force."

Comments

[Susan Lammers]

I look forward to seeing this movie. I heard a talk awhile back by Paul Ehrlich, professor of Stanford who wrote the now infamous book, The Population Bomb. He spoke about corporations as poor citizens and how capitalism is inherently structured to lead to a rape of our environment and exploitation of our citizenry because the goal of capitalism is to maximize return so as soon as , for example, our fish stock is depleted then the capital just flows to where a better return can be reached. There is no built-in cost for not allowing any fish for the next fisherman or for society. Ehrlich actually thinks we need to change our constitution in order to make corporations have some rights, rules, role as citizens.

The Ehrlichs (husband and wife team) have a new book out called One With Ninevah which delves into biological and economic issues the earth is facing. here's an excerpt from a amazon review:

The Ehrlichs' provocative and eminently readable look at current environmental trends takes its title from Rudyard Kipling's poem "Recessional," which contrasts the pomp of the 19th-century British empire to the faded glory of Nineveh, the ancient capital of the Assyrian empire. The Ehrlichs (Betrayal of Science and Reason), both members of Stanford's department of biological sciences, look at the global problems of overpopulation, overconsumption, and political and economic inequity that threaten to make the world into a new fallen Nineveh.

He draws some pretty compelling parallels between our culture and the fall of Nineveh. Of course the guy has always been a doomsayer, but it definitely forces one to think about change.